


all the tar and glass

by brookethenerd



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst Angst So Much Angst, Denial of Feelings, Eventual Happy Ending, Flashbacks, Lance is taken instead of Shiro, M/M, Nightmares, PINING KEITH, Past Torture, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, To An Extent, all that good angsty shit, and dont realize they both fuckn love each other, as slow as im capable of, everybody knows but them, i believe thats what we call it, i dont even regret that, i have horrible impulse control so we'll see, klangst, most of this fic is the boys meeting up at night and being angsty, now and then, pining lance, the boys are kinda dumb, theyre all hardcore shippers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-17 23:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11861517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: when Lance comes back from a year of being a galra prisoner, no one can get through to him. no one but keith, it seems.aka lance is taken prisoner instead of shiro at the end of s2





	1. part I

**Author's Note:**

> im absolutely horrible at chapter fics so im gonna need lots of motivation and definitely some snacks. if yall can provide the first, i can work on the latter. 
> 
> the rating could go up in the future, but seeing as i have only two future chapters planned with no idea of how much farther its gonna go, i have no idea. youll be properly warned.

**NOW**

The fact that he’s being woken up means that he fell asleep. Just that information is shocking to Keith.

He sits up in bed, running a hand over his tired face before glancing over at the door. The incessant knocking continues, and Keith tugs a shirt over his head, preparing to flay the person who interrupted his rare bout of sleep.

He pads to the door, teeth gritted, and presses the pad, letting it slide open.

Pidge stands on the other side, their fist still poised as if to knock. They let out a sigh, eyes bright and unfocused.

“What is it, Pidge?” Keith asks, voice hard. Pidge grimaces apologetically, but it only lasts a moment before that same panicked look is back on their face.

“Allura and Coran. They went on that diplomatic mission without us, right? To meet with those guys with the really long fingers? Personally, I don’t know how they can function with 8 fingers on each hand that are that long-“

“Pidge,” Keith says, arms crossed against his chest.

Pidge stops, swallowing.

“Right. Yeah. Okay.”

“Please get to the point.” He says. It’s a bit rude, but he’s tired, and Pidge doesn’t even seem to notice. Instead, they rake a hand through their perpetually messy hair, bouncing on their toes.

“They got a signal. From an escape pod from one of Zarkon’s prison ships. They-“

“Lance.” Keith exclaims. Pidge’s mouth stops short, still in the middle of forming a syllable.

“How did you know?” They ask. Keith makes a noise of frustration, and Pidge crinkles their nose.

“Where is he?” Keith asks.

“They’ve got him. They’re headed this way. They’ll be back in a few Vargas.”

Keith is already moving forward, not really listening.

Lance is back. He’s coming back. He’s alive, he’s okay, he’s coming back. Coming _home_.

Keith knows logically that Lance doesn’t consider the castle home. He has a family back on earth, a family that loves him.

But Keith doesn’t have that. All he has is this castle and the paladins and Coran and Allura and his lion.

“Keith-“ Pidge says, grabbing his arm, stopping him. He turns to face them, brows furrowing.

“Er-maybe take a shower and eat something. You have time.”

Keith softens at the kindness in their words. Pidge is trying to take care of him in the way they know how.

“I can have Hunk make something. I'll bring it to your room. I know-“ They clear their throat, “we all know how hard you took the Lance thing.”

Keith purses his lips, and nods.

“Thanks, Pidge.”

He pushes past them carefully, and is almost to his door when they call his name. He glances back, and finds them giving him a tentative smile.

“It’s all over now. He’s coming home.” They say.

Keith can’t help the little smile that tugs on his lips; it seems to surprise Pidge.

_He’s coming home._

-

Keith stands in front of the wall above his bed, pulling his blade out.

There are 314 notches on the steel. 314 notches signifying 314 days without Lance.

He feared that he’d be counting and notching forever.

But today, he sets his knife to the wall for the last time.

Lance is coming home.

-

All 4 of them gather near the ramp, watching as Allura and Coran’s ship approaches.

Everyone goes still as it docks, not daring to speak, not daring to breathe.

Pidge breaks the silence with a soft voice.

“I can’t believe he’s back.” They say.

Keith sees Shiro reach over and squeeze their shoulder out of the corner of his eye. He gives them a small smile, trying to be the strong leader. But the excitement and relief are obvious in Shiro’s eyes, and it is mirrored in all of their faces.

“I cooked up everything he likes. He’ll need some good food after being locked up for a year.” Hunk says. His preferred method of distraction is cooking, and the group has eaten better in the last year than they ever have. He’s gotten quite good at it after all this time.

“We’re not fattening Lance up,” Pidge says.

“Not fattening him! Just some cushion.” Hunk says.

Even Shiro smiles at that. They’re all a bit giddy; the tension of the last year has been broken. And all it took was a gangly, lanky, goofy sniper.

The bay doors click, and everyone stops speaking, eyes trained on the doors.

When they slide open, it’s Allura that walks through, followed closely by Coran. Both their faces are somewhat dark, lips pulled thin.

“Where’s Lance?” Hunk asks, his hope-everyone’s hope-on the verge of collapsing.

“He’s right behind us,” Allura says with faux enthusiasm.

Something is wrong.

“He has had a very rough time. Let us all be patient with him.” Allura says. Coran doesn’t pipe in with any of his own advice. He just swallows visibly and clasps his fingers together behind his back.

Then something moves in the doorway, and Lance steps through.

The Lance they lost is quite different from the Lance they find. It’s something everyone notices quickly. Whether it be the lack of the usual charismatic smile, the long scar cutting through his right eyebrow and all the way down to his lip, curving it upwards, or the quiet way he moves, he is different.

That isn’t what draws all of their attention, though.

It’s the crude crutches he adorns, and the empty swinging of fabric where his left leg should be.

No one can tell how far up it's gone through the sweatpants, but part-most-of his left leg is gone.

Everywhere there is exposed skin, save for his face, there are scars. Thin and pink, thick and white, long and short. They have no rhyme or reason. They are evidence of thoughtless, meaningless torture. Torture for the purpose of torture.

He was a Galra prisoner for a year. None of them quite know what he endured while incarcerated, but the vicious change says enough.

No one knows what to do, how to handle him. Especially not Keith. Having never been good with people and their emotions, he’s a fish out of water.

All he can do is watch as Lance walks inside, taking in the castle around him.

He stops when his gaze lands on the paladins, something panicked flickering behind his eyes. His lips part, but no words come out. He just stands there. They just stand there. No one does anything, says anything, or even breathes.

Only after an eternity, or a maybe few minutes, or maybe a few seconds of thick silence does Hunk clear his throat.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. His voice is too loud. A mess of emotions flicker across Lance's face, but it quickly settles out into a blank look.

“I’m-I’m gonna go take a shower. Maybe later, Hunk?” He asks, as if afraid that’s the wrong answer.

“Yeah! Yeah no worries, bud!” He moves forward, as if to hug him, but Lance shrinks back, nearly running into the wall.

Without another word, he bolts for the hallway leading to the bedroom, leaving the paladins, Allura, and Coran to watch him go.

Lance is back. Keith can’t help but be overjoyed by that.

But the Lance that walked through that door wasn’t the Lance he knew, the one anyone knew.

He doesn’t know how to get him back. Part of him wonders if they even can.

-

One of the only places Keith is able to sleep is in the Blue lion. There are emergency cots inside, and plenty of blankets stored away, but instead of making a proper bed, he’s settled for the seat, curling up in it.

The scent of Lance is long gone, but sometimes Keith thinks he can still smell him.

Tonight he wanders to the lions, on autopilot. Blue lets him in immediately, Red joining her in his mind.

But he isn’t alone when he reaches the cockpit.

Standing inside, looking at the photo separate from all the rest, is Lance. Freshly showered, wearing sweats. He’s found a nicer pair of crutches and leans against them. 

He reaches out and traces a finger along the almost-white paper where his body used to be, where Keith himself rubbed the image off from touching it every night.

Keith takes a step further, boot hitting the metal. Lance flinches, scrabbling for a weapon, but finds nothing. He whirls, settling when he realizes it’s Keith.

“Oh. Sorry.” He says, somewhat embarrassed. Just the embarrassment itself is new.

Keith never knew Lance to be embarrassed about anything, not something like this. Not for being caught in his own lion.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be in here.” Keith says.

“But you have been,” Lance says.

Heat crawls up Keith’s neck.

“I-“

“It’s cool, man. I get it.”

Keith doesn’t know what he ‘gets’, but he nods as if he does, not wanting to ask. He’s never been good with words, especially not around Lance.

For a moment, they stand in the silence, Lance’s attention back on the pictures. Keith focuses on the scars that dot the dark arms that hang at Lance’s sides.

“You should get some rest.” Keith tries.

“Pot calling the kettle black,” Lance says.

Keith’s brows furrow, and Lance glances his way, not bothering to tease Keith about not knowing the saying.

“You should get some rest, too, man.” He amends.

But neither of them makes for the door. They meet each other's eyes, and it’s like there’s something each wants to say to the other, but neither speaks. Neither does anything but stand there.

Lance’s brows furrow, eyes glazing over.

“Blue is yelling at me. If I don’t go back to my bunk and crash she’s going to zap me.”

“She can do that?”

“I don’t want to find out.” He says, limping towards the door. He stops before he reaches the end of the ramp, leaning on his crutches.

“You can stay in here, if you want. I don’t care.” He says.

Then Lance is gone again. Keith has to remind himself that this time, it's temporary.

**THEN**

It’s been a long time since Keith slept through the night. He’s always had trouble sleeping, but when Lance was ripped right from his-from all of their-hands, he found that sleep evades him even easier, slipping like water through his fingers.

He does lots of exploring. By this point, he has the entire castle mapped. There are only so many corridors, so many doors to pass, so many rooms to peek into. He could probably walk it with his eyes closed, pointing out every doorway as he went.

When Keith finds himself wandering around the castle late at night, he isn’t expecting his blank mind and automatic steps to bring him to the lions.

He enters the huge hangar, the lions situated around the room, laying on their bellies, as if sleeping. Keith doesn’t think the lions sleep, but he swears he hears a snore coming from green’s direction.

The air is cold, forcing goosebumps along his skin. His fingers wrap around his upper arms as he makes his way further into the large room.

Instead of going for Red, who tentatively reaches out to him when he closes the door behind him, he looks to Blue.

It’s been a long time since she’s had a paladin. Almost 4 months, now.

He wonders if she’s lonely. He doesn’t even want to imagine what that’s like; to have a bond like that broken without warning, to be pulled away.

She knows what happened to Lance; he was ripped straight out of her, cloth stripped from velcro. It was Blue who was found floating in space, empty.

They’ve tried to connect with her multiple times in the hopes of maybe having some understanding of where Lance was taken, but she’s refused to let anyone near her. Anytime one of them steps her way her mouth opens and a guttural growl thunders out, shaking the room. They’ve let her be since he was taken.

Keith doesn’t dare take a step towards her.

Then he feels the pull. It’s a pull like one Red would send, but different. Different than Red, softer, more fluid. Ragged and slippery.

The first thing he feels when he lets her in is her overwhelming sadness, her longing. It settles into Keith’s chest, not at all unlike his own ache. Lance’s loss is a hole in all of them, but, similar to Lance, Blue is much more open with her feelings.

He feels her questioning pull, her yearning. She wants to know if there’s been any news. She wants to know if they’ve found him.

Keith lets out a breath. He shakes his head.

The sadness turns black in his chest. He isn’t sure if it’s his own or Blue’s. Maybe both.

Blue’s mouth opens, lowering the ramp, and Keith hesitantly makes his way towards Blue and inside.

Her mouth shuts behind him and he finds himself completely alone in a lion that isn’t his own. It’s colder inside than in the hanger, biting his skin.

The layout inside the lion is nearly the same, the only real difference being the color.

The color, and the pictures.

Taped up in front of his seat, covering almost all of the non-window space are photos. Photos of the paladins, of Allura and Coran, of all of them together. There are pictures of children and teens with the same dark skin and brown hair as Lance; his siblings. There’s a shot of Lance standing in the middle of a round woman with a bright smile and a man with pepper-speckled gray hair and kind eyes. His parents.

The picture that he’s drawn to, though, is the one taped to the panel. Keith can tell it’s special, having its own place separate from the others.

It’s the Paladins. All standing together, arms slung around one another, sweaty and tired and smiling.

Keith remembers when they took it. After their first successful battle, Allura ordered them to stand together the minute they were out of their lions. They had all bitched and moaned but complied, no one daring to go against Allura.

It had been awkward and stiff, and then Hunk accidentally elbowed Shiro in the ribs, and Shiro made a noise that was eerily similar to that of a zebra, and the dryness was broken. They all laughed, even Shiro. The photo is a bit blurry on the edges from where Allura herself shook with laughter.

Keith reaches out, running a finger down Lance’s figure.

Something bubbles up inside him, a familiar feeling; a feeling he’s never been able to find a name for.

Looking at Lance, smiling and happy, makes him feel like he’s missing a limb. Some integral part of him has been taken away.

Lance is their glue. He always has been. He isn’t just comic relief, contrary to what Keith might tell him.

Without Lance, they fell apart. They can’t form Voltron, can barely hold conversations. Allura has been looking for someone new to pilot Blue, but it seems Blue is still holding out for Lance, as are they.

He can’t blame her. Lance is light, he is warmth, he is the magnet in a room. You can’t help but want to be near him.

Keith is relieved that Lance isn’t here. He’d give him shit about being so emo; he would be right.

He just misses him. He misses him so much. It’s a hole in his chest and a stone in his belly.

_I love him, too._

The words slip and slide in his head, coming from Blue. They are soft, a bit sad, not at all accusatory. Still, Keith bristles.

“I don’t-I don’t love Lance. We’re-we aren’t even really friends.” Keith retorts, brows furrowing.

Blue, confused at his rebuttal, goes still in his head. In her silence, Red slides into his head, too. He didn’t even know it was possible to connect with two lions at once.

But, considering he didn’t know he could connect with another Paladin’s lion, that isn’t surprising.

 _It’s because of our bond._ Red tells him, her soft and steady voice a comfort.

“Your bond?” Keith asks, settling back into Lance’s seat. It’s a bit too far from the pedals for Keith. Lance is still in that lanky, gangly phase. Keith doubts he’ll ever grow out of it.

 _The closest word in English is ‘Partner._ Red says.

Keith’s lips twitch. Partner.

 _You and Lance share a similar bond. It is why we can connect. It is why you both are our paladins._ Red explains.

 _Family_. Blue says, slightly giddy at Red’s presence.

“We’re all family,” Keith says, eager to explain away the discomfort in his stomach.

 _Not like this._ Red says.

 _No, no, not like this._ Blue agrees.

He doesn’t like Lance like that. He cares about him, sure, and the way he cares about him is different than the way he cares for the other paladins, from everyone he’s ever known, sure, but that doesn’t mean he loves him.

And Lance most definitely doesn’t love Keith. The two bicker 98% of the time they’re together. That isn’t love.

 _It is alright that you don’t believe. It takes time to accept_. Red says supportively.

Keith isn’t quite used to this soft side of Red. She’s as volatile as he is, as quick to frustration and anger.

But, Keith guesses, she shares the same inner quiet that he does. The one that makes him seem older than he is at times, wise beyond his years.

 _Sleep, Keith._ Red urges, sensing the exhaustion that has hung over him like a sheet for months.

And maybe it's because she tells him to, or maybe it's the fact that the seat smells like Lance, but he does.


	2. part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont have an upload schedule, and chapters coming every day are unlikely. but i move into the dorms tomorrow and have orientation stuff happening all week, and dont know when ill be able to write, so i figured id go ahead and update. hopefully ill pump another chapter out soon. 
> 
> tw for the chapter: some description of torture, nothing extreme

**NOW**

They gather for dinner the second night the way they have since they first came to the ship, but for the first time in 314 days, Lance’s empty seat no longer hangs over them like a boulder poised to drop.

Instead, he is sitting quietly in his chair. Being quiet is most definitely uncharacteristic of Lance, but everyone else is just as quiet as he is, so there’s no one to question it.

What are they supposed to say?

_Hey, Lance, how was prison? We see you got your leg chopped off. Was that fun?_

Or maybe _hey, Lance, where did all those scars come from? Did that one hurt?_

The night before, when Lance returned, no one even got together, all bringing things to their rooms, everyone needing space to adjust.

It was odd, Keith thought. After months of wanting him back, no one could stand to be in his presence.

Besides he himself, at least. But maybe that’s because of the realization he had a few months ago.

Keith Kogane loves Lance McClain, and he has for a long time. Since after they met at the Garrison, before the big battle. Somewhere in there, his heart decided on Lance, and what Keith always thought was just tension and frustration was something else, simmering beneath the surface.

It took the disappearance of Lance for him to understand.

The dinner drags on for a few minutes. Eventually, Allura and Shirt begin to talk. They talk about everything but Lance and where he’s been. They avoid the Galra/Zarkon topic as a whole.

They fill Lance in on what’s been going on: the diplomatic meetings, the additions to the alliance, etc, etc. He appears to be listening, but even if he weren’t, Keith is pretty sure Allura would still talk anyway. Anything to fill this god awful silence.

Shirt and Coran back her up, adding comments when needed, no one else joining in.

Hunk, usually the most charismatic eater of them all, takes slow bites, eyes on his bowl, cheeks flushed. Pidge is fidgeting with something they’ve brought to the table; a little electronic that Keith has seen them carting around for weeks. Some little experiment.

Normally, Allura would go ballistic at the sight of such a thing at the table, but tonight, she doesn’t even spare a glance at it.

Keith eats only when he feels Lance’s eyes on him. It gives him something to do besides looking over.

After their weird conversation last night, he’s starting to think he stands somewhere differently with Lance. But Lance stands somewhere differently with him, too, so that could be it.

Either way, something has changed. And Keith isn’t brave enough to ask Lance what that is.

Instead, he eats and avoids everyone’s gaze.

“Have you made it to the infirmary yet? Pidge stayed up all last night working on a prosthetic for you. It’s very good.” Allura says, finally addressing Lance and expecting an answer.

“Not yet,” Lance says, voice low and hard.

Allura, not at all phased by his standoffish answer, sits straighter, lips curling in a smile.

“You’ll love it. I imagine it will work perfectly if it was made by Pidge.”

A small, proud smile tugs on Pidge’s lips and they duck their head, bashful.

“I’ll check it out,” Lance says.

“Better soon than later. The crutches can’t feel great.” Allura says.

Lance purses his lips. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to be reminded of his lack of leg. But Allura keeps pushing on the wound.

Seeing that she’s getting no reply, she turns to Hunk.

“You made Lance’s favorite tonight, right?” She asks. Hunk nods, sending a sidelong glance at Lance, who hasn’t touched his food.

“Hunk has gotten quite good at cooking while you’ve been gone.”

“Allura.” Shiro murmurs, knowing just as well as Keith that Lance just wants to be left alone right now.

She pretends not to hear.

“I believe there are even some cookie-like creations in the kitchen.”

“I’m sure he’ll try some later,” Hunk says, as anxious as the others to get the topic off of Lance.

Whereas he would normally be comfortable and confident under the spotlight, this new Lance resembles a pinned butterfly. He shrinks into his seat, as if trying to make himself invisible.

It seems this dinner is as painful for him as it is for everyone else, except maybe Coran, who eats happily, blissfully unaware of the thick tension.

“How was the meeting? With the Alshori’i?” Shiro asks, clearing his throat.

Allura, not batting an eye, turns her focus to him, smiling.

“It went wonderfully! They were very eager to join our alliance.”

“That’s good.”

“How many is that, now?” Pidge asks.

“More than I can count,” Hunk says. He’s trying to pull a joke out of Lance, obvious by the way he looks Lance’s way hopefully when he speaks.

But Lance doesn’t take the bait, pushing his goo around his bowl with a fork.

“It’s been quite uneventful these last few times. The meetings go easily. The Galra are being somewhat civilized for now, not sending their forces everywhere.” Allura says.

Lance’s fingers tighten into a fist around the metal fork, and he lifts his head, staring at Allura. It's the first time he's speaking up, and everyone is shocked. 

“Civilized?” He asks.

Allura blanches, lips parting.

“I just mean that-“

“The Galra are not civilized. The Galra are savages. They are not civilized, not one of them.”

Keith takes that like a punch to the gut. He loses his breath, dropping his fork, which lands on the table with a clang.

“The Galra are monsters. The minute you start making them anything less is the minute they will beat us.” He snaps. It’s so very un-Lance-like that it shocks the table into silence.

Keith feels sick. Nausea is crawling its way up his throat, bile burning the back of his tongue.

Lance looks his way, and for a minute Keith thinks he’s going to apologize.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he looks back down at his bowl and starts shoveling goo into his mouth.

That ends the conversation at the table. Everyone eats in silence, no one wanting to be the first to leave the table.

Keith doesn’t take one more bite. He thinks if he does, he’ll cry or scream at Lance or scream at everyone or puke. And he doesn’t want to do any of that. He just wants to shrivel away, to disappear.

He feels his Galra genes blinking like a bright marquee above his head.

_Savage. Monster._ It reads. The words burn him the way a blade or a flame never could.

_You are not a monster. You're as human as he is. As human as the rest of the paladins. You are._

But is he? Is he, really? Keith, so quick to anger, so quick to violence. Is he like them?

He’s pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a chair squeaking backward. Lance pushes back in his seat, a hand to his mouth.

While Keith figured it’d be him who puked at this meal, it seems it’s going to be Lance. Lance likely hasn't had this much food this quickly in a long time. His stomach isn't sure what to do with it. 

Lance pushes the seat back until he’s free, and shoves to his feet. But he’s unsteady on one leg, and his crutches are resting on the floor, out of reach.

He trips, falling to his knee, palms slamming against the ground. Before anyone can breathe he’s retching onto the floor. He pukes up all the goo he just ate. 

Keith moves out of his chair to help him when he’s done, hands barely brushing Lance’s back before Lance is lurching away, a strangled scream slipping through his lips.

“ _Don’t touch me._ ” He hisses, falling backward. He looks up at Keith from his spot on the floor, breathing heavily.

That same nausea rolls through Keith. His ears ring. He doesn’t know what to do. No one knows what to do.

Lance grabbles for his crutches, using them and the table to climb to his feet-his foot. He wipes his mouth with a hand, and doesn’t say another word before he’s limping out of the room.

-

Keith didn’t mean to punch a hole in the wall. But he was angry. At the Galra for taking Lance, at himself for being one of them, at Allura for pushing Lance, and at Lance for changing so much. He knows it isn’t Lance’s fault, that none of this is anyone’s fault, but he wants someone to blame, and there are so many options. So many ways to explain away the devastation.

It’s much easier than accepting what’s happening.

So, he punched a hole in the wall, and now his knuckles are dripping blood. He tries to wash them out in the sink, but his hands shook too badly.

That’s how he ends up walking toward the infirmary at 3 in the morning. It’s empty when he gets in, and he pulls out a human first aid kit, dropping onto one of the cots.

He dumps the alcohol onto his split knuckles, sucking in a breath when fire licks its way across his skin.

Once the flame settles, he wipes the blood and alcohol away with steadier hands, and wraps his hand in gauze. This isn’t an injury severe enough to warrant the healing pods, and Keith wouldn’t accept one anyway.

This is his own doing, and he doesn’t need that fixed. Not right now.

Once he’s finished binding his aching hand, he leans back in the cot. Maybe here, in an unfamiliar bed, he can sleep. Maybe he needs a change in venue.

It isn’t near as comfortable as his bed, or even the chair in the Blue lion, but it allows Keith to drift off.

He never dips fully under, and is woken sometime later by the sound of a cabinet being opened.

He opens his eyes to find Lance kneeling down in front of a cabinet, searching for something. He finds it after a moment, pulling out a tub of some kind of salve.

He pushes himself roughly to his feet, and jumps when he sees Keith watching him.

“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Keith bristles at the sudden kindness. He wasn’t kind earlier, when he was calling half of who Keith is a savage, a monster. Keith hasn’t forgotten that. He _can’t_ forget that.

Lance sits down on the other cot, and rolls up his left pant leg to reveal a badly-healed stump that ends right above his knee. It’s a crude scar, one that pulses pink and red, angry.

“How long ago did that happen?” Keith asks, curiosity catching him before he can stop himself.

Lance’s gaze drops to his leg, brows furrowing.

“I think it was a month ago. I'm not sure. I kept track of the days as best I could.”

Keith opens his mouth to speak, but stops himself, successful this time. Of course they didn’t put him in a healing pod. If they had, he wouldn’t even have a scar.

Lance knows what he was about to say, because he gives him a hard smile. It contorts his face into something almost unrecognizable, mostly because of the scar. It twists on his mouth viciously, making Lance look almost scary in the dim light of the infirmary.

But this is Lance. The goofy sniper who can’t go two minutes without cracking a joke.

At least, it was.

Keith can see pieces of the old Lance. In the way he speaks, in the way he moves. He saw it last night in the lion, and he sees it now. It’s that little remaining tether to the old Lance that keeps Keith from trembling.

“No healing pods for prisoners of war. They just made sure it didn’t get infected.”

“No pain meds, I’m guessing.”

Lance laughs, though it isn’t funny. Still, seeing and hearing that familiar laugh gives Keith hope.

Maybe they can get their Lance back. Maybe he can get _his_ Lance back.

Lance unscrews the salve cap, and dips his fingers in. He sucks in a breath, pain evident on his face the minute his fingers brush the stump. He hisses in pain, and yanks his hand away.

“ _Mierda_.” He curses. Keith has been around Lance long enough to recognize the word.

He chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment.

“Do you want me to do it?” He asks, though he doubts Lance wants his help. After all, he is half Galra. He is half _monster_.

Lance lifts his head, almost surprised that Keith asks. His ears go pink, lips parting.

“I don’t have to. Just if you want-“ Keith says quickly.

“Yes. Thank you.” Lance says, voice small.

Keith nods, getting to his feet and moving to sit on the cot across from lance. He brings the first aid kit with him, doubting that the wound-though mostly healed-has been cleaned in a long time.

Instead of going for the salve, he pulls out the alcohol and some gauze.

“I don’t think I need to warn you that it's going to hurt.”

“I think I can handle it.”

Still, Lance winces slightly when the burn sets in. Keith guesses that a year of torture doesn’t really give you a tolerance for pain, unsurprisingly. Pain is pain.

Keith spends longer than he needs to, letting the hammering of his heart run the show. He’s gentle as he rubs the salve in, fingers lingering. He is as gentle as possible, and goes softer every time Lance winces.

Eventually, he has to stop, and sits back, closing the salve.

"Thanks." Lance says. 

And for a moment, they sit in silence. Both have a million things they want to say to each other, but Keith knows that he himself isn’t brave enough. Not when he knows what Lance thinks of him. Not when he knows he could never be loved back.

“I’m sorry. About earlier.” Lance says. 

“It’s fine.”

“It isn’t. I didn’t-when I said that-I didn’t mean you. I wasn’t talking about you.”

It’s an apology, and Keith is surprised to hear it. He doesn’t know what to say; he doesn’t think there’s anything to say.

“Okay,” Keith says. He doesn’t know if he believes Lance; he was there when Lance spit venom. It still burns, coiling inside of him like a snake. He doesn’t accept the apology, because he isn’t sure if it’s a way for Lance to fill the silence, or because he really means it.

Lance doesn’t seem to expect acceptance, because his face doesn’t change. He just reaches for his crutches, and carefully pushes to his feet.

“I think I’m gonna try on the prosthetic tomorrow.” He says.

“That’s good,” Keith says, unsure of why Lance is telling him. Maybe because Lance doesn’t have anyone else. Maybe because Keith is here when the thought occurs to Lance.

Lance turns something over in his brain, almost unreadable to Keith. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

He settles for, "Goodnight, Keith.”

Then he leaves, and the words neither of them were able to say hang between them.

* * *

 

**THEN**

Lance has a lot of free time in the beginning. For the first 11 days or so (Lance has been keeping track by carving into the wall with a fingernail) no one comes to bother him. He is given food and water once a day, and his bathroom bucket is emptied every other day.

He spends most of his time talking. To Shiro, to Hunk, to Pidge, to Allura, to Coran, to his siblings, to his parents.

But mostly to Keith. He doesn’t know why it’s Keith he always drifts to. He tells Keith stories of his childhood, of growing up, of going to school. He tells him about the Garrison, about meeting Keith for the first time. He tells him about how afraid he was during Voltron’s first battle, how he still feels like Voltron would be better off without him. He tells him about feeling like he isn’t good enough for them.

He says Keith’s name so many time it loses meaning, sometimes. Sometimes _Keith_ is just the image of a black-haired boy with a perpetual frown. A boy that makes his stomach coil and twist.

Lance lays flat on his back on the metal floor, shirt tugged off so the cold of the metal seeps into his back.

The cells are hot. Every time the slot opens, he feels a rush of cold air come in, but the cells themselves have no AC. Stale, warm air swirls around all day. They smell, and they are dark. The only light is a dim one on the ceiling, one that is only on for a few hours a day.

Lance is going crazy. There are only so many stories he can tell Keith in a day, even sleeping as much as he does, which is most of the time.

Time passes slowly, and Lance almost wishes they’d just end it. He’d rather die sane than live like this, slowly losing his mind in this goddamned gray box.

“This is my torture, Keith. They’re making me, the most ADHD human in this entire universe, according to mamá, wait. I’m bored and I want to shower and I want to run. Like, sprint the length of the castle. Oh, maybe a big field. God, I miss fields. Big grassy fields I could just run in. Not that I ever ran, but, I could have."

“I ran cross-country for one season in middle school. It was absolute hell. Mamá had to listen to me complain for an entire three months. She was just as happy as I was when that sport ended. That was the last time she forced me into a sport.”

“Did you ever do sports, Keith? Probably not. I think you’re more of that quiet loner. Dresses in black. Maybe even a skull and crossbones beanie at one point. Oh, I bet you wore the hell out of some beanies. I’d have liked to see that.”

That familiar twist yanks on his belly. He can almost picture it in his head: Keith frowning with some dumb beanie pulled over his mop of hair. He can almost hear him protesting. He can feel the laughter.

He misses him. He misses that moody, mullet head.

But Lance doesn’t let himself get sad, not in here. Sadness and wallowing are a one-way ticket to insanity, and Lance refuses to let himself get swallowed by that.

He turns the one-sided conversation to something more lighthearted, telling Keith about the few years he played soccer. It’s a distraction, one that helps with the ache in Lance’s chest.

It’s something.

-

At the end of the 11th day, a thundering Galra soldier with one red eye opens the door to Lance’s cell and orders him out.

Lance looks up from his spot on the floor, brows arching.

“Dude, you’re in for quite a surprise if you think I’m going to go willingly,” Lance says.

The Galra soldier’s lips turn up in a menacing grin.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

Then he snaps a finger, and four other soldiers, wearing helmets that cover their faces, swarm inside, filling the very small space.

Lance knows he can’t fight them, but he can make it as difficult as possible. He goes deadweight, limp as they tug him up. His head lolls, and he lets himself shift in every direction he’s pulled. It causes the soldiers to lose balance, allowing him the opening he needs.

Once they have him past the door he tugs free.

Only to be stopped by fire pulsing in his neck.

He spits a gasp through gritted teeth, finding himself on his knees. The pain ebbs once he’s down, and he reaches a hand up. He feels the light bump on the back of his neck.

Some kind of chip beneath the skin. A tracker, he guesses. One with the ability to hurt him, likely to kill him.

That’s why the soldier wasn’t worried. He knows Lance has nowhere to go. It makes Lance sick to think about. 

Lance is dragged to his feet, stomach rolling. His body is weak after the electrocution, and he’s too shocked to do anything but be dragged down the hall.

He is taken to a large room and strapped to a chair. Bright lights shine on his chair, and he squints against them.

The large soldier pushes a cart full of tools Lance has never seen, but ones he knows can’t be good. He swallows bile, and keeps his chin high.

A beat later a Galra woman steps in. Her dark hair is slicked back, her face harsh and severe at all angles. She radiates calm, so much so that it’s unsettling.

She picks up a simple tool; some type of knife. She stands in front of Lance, turning the blade over in her fingers.

“Lance McClain. Blue lion of Voltron. On my prison ship.” She says, her voice as hard as her features.

“So you’ve heard of me?” Lance asks, a smirk tugging on his lips.

The woman mirrors his smile with one of her own; hers is all ice.

“Oh, I have. I’ve heard that you are the least talented of the paladins. The least bright. The lesser opponent in battle. The one left out. The unnecessary paladin.” She says.

Lance doesn’t let her words poke at him.

“I haven’t heard of you. Guess you’re not all that impressive.” He says casually, shrugging a shoulder. The movement is restricted with his bindings, but the message is clear.

The woman shakes her head, that same smile on her lips.

“I’ll allow you to pass your own judgments on me. In time.”

“You’re not worth the time, lady.”

“Oh, Lance. Don’t you know? You have plenty of time to do with what you wish.”

“I’m going to be out of here any minute. My friends are coming to get me.”

“I’m sure they are.” She says, treating him like an ignorant child. Her tone slips beneath his skin, prickling.

He doesn’t let her see that her words touch him. He tries, at least.

But this woman is good, and she sees right through every wall Lance puts up.

“You’re quite pretty, you know. I think we’ll take that away.” She says, pressing the tip of the knife to his lip, not enough to break the skin. She drops it, and steps closer to Lance. She pushes up the sleeves of his shirt, and though he shifts against it, he’s powerless to stop her.

She drops the knife to the top of his wrist.

“No witty comments?” She asks, lifting her eyes to him.

“Oh, I have plenty of comments. None of which are appropriate in front of a lady.” Lance says, nodding at the large soldier who still stands back. He growls, and the woman smiles.

“Then let’s begin.”

-

The first day is just the left forearm. Top and bottom. She cuts him to ribbons, slices until Lance’s blood coats the floor and he can’t remember his own name.

Once she’s done, she pulls a chair up, and sits down across from Lance, who is almost delirious from pain.

This woman knows what she’s doing. She knows how to hurt him just enough to keep him conscious. She drags it out, draws it out, slows it down.

“I won’t tell you anything,” Lance says, trying not to slur his words.

The woman wipes the blood from the blade onto her pants, and smiles.

“You will. But it doesn’t matter. You know nothing of importance.”

Lance’s brows furrow.

“You don’t understand?” She asks, arching perfectly sculpted brows. Lance doesn’t give her the satisfaction of an answer.

Regardless, she shifts, tossing her hair over one shoulder.

“You are not here because I need information, little paladin.” She says. Lance’s blood runs cold, and if he weren’t so tired, he thinks he might puke.

"Then-"

"Why?"

Lance nods, swallowing against his dry tongue. 

"For fun." She says.

The woman stands up, and looks to the guard.

“Take him back. Do not bandage him. Bring him to me again in two days.” She says.

The soldier obliges and pulls a too-tired to fight Lance from his bindings.

And for the first time since he got here, Lance starts to wonder if he’s going to die here.


	3. part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for your kind comments!!! i read every one of them and truly appreciate your words!!!

**THEN**

The brutal woman-whose name is later revealed to be Eliara-alternates her methods. Every two days Lance is pulled from his hot cell and tied to that same chair, but it isn’t always the knives. Sometimes it is fire. Sometimes it is needles.

There are so many types of pain in this world. Lance is getting to feel them all.

But it isn’t just physical pain that Eliara has mastered. It is emotional, mental.

Lance sits back in the chair, tears streaming down his cheeks. In the beginning, he’d have been embarrassed to cry. Lance McClain doesn’t cry. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t weep.

He didn’t use to. The new Lance does it without shame. To be exposed to that much pain on a regular basis really takes away any reservations about showing emotion.

He tried to be strong in the beginning. He really did. He put up a fight and spit sarcastic comments and tried to dig at Eliara and the guards in as many ways as he could.

But it didn’t make the knives stop slicing or the fire stop burning. Now, after 5 months, he doesn’t say a word. There isn’t enough room for words. He goes back and forth between Eliara’s sessions and unconsciousness on the floor of his cell. It is easier to be asleep, especially with the pain and the heat. It allows him brief escapes.

He figured he was getting used to it, if such a thing is possible. After all, there comes to be a limit. There is only so much Eliara can do to him. Only so many creative combinations to bring him to the edge of death without letting him fall over the edge.

But today Eliara pulls out a syringe, and plunges it into Lance’s neck before he can even take a breath. It hits him fast and hard, the floor falling out from under him, the world slipping away, replaced by another.

In this world, Lance is standing up, and someone else is in the chair he has frequented so much.

He sees a flash of black hair, the glint of angry blue eyes. His stomach leaps. Keith. Keith is here with him. He isn’t alone.

He allows himself that selfish thought for only a second before shame floods him.

He wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Anyone but Zarkon and Eliara herself, at least.

He tries to move forward, to help Keith out of the chair, but finds that he can’t move. He struggles and kicks and tries to lunge, but his body doesn’t respond. He is nailed to the floor, not in control of his body.

Fear unfurls in his gut, bile rising in his throat. He opens his mouth to yell Keith’s name, but nothing comes out.

In that same instant Keith’s head snaps up, his eyes meeting Lance’s. His brows furrow for a moment before he snaps his head to the side.

A familiar harsh face and the clack of boots ring across the room. Dread turns Lance’s blood cold, and he tries again to move, in vain.

Eliara is out of sight one moment, standing in front of Keith the next. She wields a large blade, and drags it down Keith’s arms. The minute she’s slit both his wrists she backs away, looking over at Lance with a wry smile.

Keith begins to panic as the blood pools beside the chair. His skin begins to lose its coloring, and he searches for Lance, yelling his name the minute he meets his eyes.

“Lance, help me. Help me. Help me, Lance.” Keith begs, his voice cutting into Lance like one of Eliara’s knives.

Lance tries so hard to scream his name, to save him, to tell him he’s going to save him. To lie, to give Keith some comfort before he dies in this brutal way.

But Lance can’t even make himself blink. He can’t save Keith. He can’t reassure him. He can’t do anything but watch as Keith Kogane dies.

Just as Keith’s skin goes pallid and white, Lance is able to move. He rushes forward, and catches Keith as he falls, somehow no longer in the chair. He sinks to his knees, holding onto Keith for dear life, ignoring the blood that smears his skin as it drips off of Keith.

Keith gives him a tiny smile, one Lance has only seen a few times. He wants to see it every day for the rest of his life. He could take all of this if he could just see it.

“Hey. I got you. I got you.” Lance says, trying not to scream or puke or cry. Keith closes his eyes for a moment, and when they open, they hold Lance’s gaze in an iron grip.

“L-lance,” Keith says, voice hollow and small.

“You’re alright.”

Keith’s eyelids flutter, and Lance shakes him, trying to keep him awake.

“You gotta stay awake. Just long enough for the others to get here.”

“No one-no one’s comin’, Lance.” Keith murmurs. Lance shakes his head.

“Shut up. They’re gonna save us both. We’re gonna be alright.”

But his words fall on deaf ears. Because before he can finish, Keith’s eyes close. He seems to shut down instantaneously, body going cold. He’s dead. Dead, gone, cold stone in Lance’s lap.

A sob threatens to burst through Lance’s lips.

“Keith. Wake up, Keith. You are not allowed to die, asshole. You’re not allowed to die.” Lance says, words blending together as he says them over and over, begging for Keith to come back.

He doesn’t. Instead, Lance is slammed back into his chair, blinking away the vision of Keith, dead in his arms.

He finds himself looking into Eliara’s face, a satisfied look on her face.

“It’s very realistic. Even with some irregularities, he had no idea it was a simulation.” Eliara says to the solider, who nods in agreement.

“The serum is almost faultless.” The gruff soldier says. He’s been dragging Lance in and out of his cell for months, but Lance still doesn’t know his name. He doesn’t particularly care, but the part of him that still has hope knows why.

The less he knows about his surroundings, the harder it is to escape, and the harder it is to return.

He doesn’t have a lot of hope these days.There is no room for it here.

“Who did you see, paladin? We programmed the simulation, but the subject is completely conjured by the subject. A person you truly care about.” Eliara says, looking at Lance curiously.

Lance’s stomach rolls, and he holds his tongue.

Eliara doesn’t spend much time on it, and nods to the soldier.

“No matter. You and I both know you will tell me. And if you don’t, I’ll pull it out of you. You’ll scream their name.” She says. Then the soldier is moving forward and Eliara is stepping back. The soldier unlocks Lance’s restraints, Lance too tired to fight. He’s still raw from the flames Eliara used a few days back, and every shift causes the burns on his stomach to ignite.

He lets the soldier drag him back to his cell where he falls to the floor, tugging his shirt up and laying on his stomach. The cool metal of the floor soothes his burns just enough to keep him calm, and he rests his cheek against the metal, mind more active than it has been in months.

He has to remind himself over and over that Keith, the real Keith, is alive. He is with the others on the castle, safe and healthy.

He isn’t here, dying or dead in Lance’s arms. He’s okay.

“What I wouldn’t give for a healing pod, Keith. To go to sleep for a few days.” Lance says, shifting uncomfortably. While being on his stomach helps with the burns, it makes the healing cuts on thighs scream.

He imagines Eliara does it on purpose. Makes it so that it hurts no matter where he is, so that there isn’t a relief.

He wonders how much longer this will go on. How long Eliara will keep him alive; if she’ll keep up with such a consistent schedule.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can do it.

He’s tried to escape 41 times in the last 5 months. Some have been more valiant attempts; all have landed him back in this cell.

But he can’t stop. The planning is what keeps him going. The planning keeps him alive.

That, and talking to Keith. Keith has become an outlet Lance uses whenever he isn’t working on some half-hearted escape attempt, the place his mind goes when it needs peace.

Lately, though, thinking of Keith has made him ache. It isn’t necessarily in a bad way; it’s an ache that’s always accompanied Keith in Lance’s mind. He just didn’t realize it until now.

He thinks he misses him more than he misses the other paladins. While he would give a weeks rations just to see Hunk or Allura or any of them, there isn't a lot Lance wouldn’t do to see Keith one more time.

He’s going to die in here, and he knows it. But being able to tell Keith he’s sorry for being such a dick would make it better. Being able to tell Keith he doesn’t actually hate him, not even a little bit, not even at all, would make it easier.

But he’s in this cell, and Keith is out in space, and the chances their paths will collide again are far too small.

**NOW**

During their few free hours after lunch before training, everyone usually splits up. Shiro finds somewhere to read, Pidge tinkers, Hunk naps, Allura and Coran plan, and Keith trains. Keith may have claimed it was because he wanted to improve, but Lance knew the truth. Keith couldn’t even sleep at night, let alone nap during the day. He didn’t have the patience to read or watch some show on his tablet.

When Lance reaches the cold room today, it’s empty. He’s relieved, and sets the prosthetic on the floor before dropping down onto one of the benches. He tugs off his shirt, the cotton rubbing uncomfortably against his healing scabs. The letters on his spine hurt the most, having been placed in the most sensitive spot.

He made sure to wear shorts, and doesn’t have to roll up any fabric to get to his stump. He carefully places the prosthetic over his leg, sucking in a breath at the flash of pain.

Pidge warned him it would hurt at first. Especially with the way his leg was cauterized, and how it healed.

Lance can handle pain. He pushes it away, and works on fastening the notches that attach it to his leg.

He doesn’t hear Keith come in. If he had, he’d have put on his shirt to cover the scars. He knows how disgustingly gruesome they are. He can’t even look at them.

He covered the mirror in his bathroom the first time he took a shower when he got back, unable to look at himself.

But Keith is already in the room by the time Lance hears him. He flinches, and turns around on the bench. He doesn’t have time to cover his front and it’s sloping landmark of pink, shiny flesh. It resembles a desert, one borne of fire. It takes up most of his stomach, crawling up to his chest. It is not beautiful, and Lance knows it.

He is more of a beast than a man these days.

Keith doesn’t seem disgusted. There is no pity in his gaze. There is just curiosity, and something else Lance can’t place.

He hates that Keith is seeing this. Seeing Lance as he is now, broken and scarred.

To him, Keith is as close to perfect as a person can get, at least on the outside. Smooth olive skin, clear eyes, black hair, slim muscle loping up and down his body. He’s beautiful.

Lance isn’t.

“You tried it on,” Keith says. Lance’s brows furrow, confused.

“The leg.” Keith clarifies. Lance nods, dropping his gaze to the prosthetic attached to his leg. He reaches for the t shirt, but Keith moving further into the room stops him.

“You don’t have to hide them. They’re not that bad.” Keith says.

Lance scoffs, the shirt slipping back onto the bench.

“You’re a horrible liar, man.”

“I am not.”

“Yeah, you are,” Lance says. Keith’s lips twitch into the ghost of a smile. Lance would burn the world down to see that smile again.

“Have you walked yet?” Keith asks.

Lance shakes his head.

“Want some help?”

“From you?” Lance asks, somewhat surprised. While he may not have ever disliked Keith, not really, he didn’t think that the feeling was mutual.

“No, from Santa Claus. Yes, from me.”

“Santa Claus would give me presents. Feel free to call him.”

“I’ll do that,” Keith says. Again, that hint of a smile.

Keith moves toward Lance. Lance’s heart kickstarts, beating so loud he’s sure Keith can hear it.

He has to remind himself that the Keith he’s been talking to for a year in that cell, the Keith Eliara showed him in the simulations, isn’t the real Keith. This is the real Keith, and Lance has no idea how he feels, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t feel the same.

Lance pushes to his feet, setting a bit of weight on the prosthetic. His leg gives out at the flash of pain, but Keith is there to catch him, fingers closing around Lance’s shoulders, holding him up.

“You can’t rush headfirst into this. You’ll bust your ass.” Keith says. Lance crinkles his nose, but doesn’t have the energy to make some witty comment. One doesn’t even pop into his head.

It occurs to him how much he’s changed in that moment. It makes him more than a little bit sad.

Lance steadies himself on Keith, avoiding his eyes, and regains his balance. Keith takes a step back, somehow knowing Lance is going to step before he does. Lance moves forward, first with his good foot, then carefully onto the prosthetic, Keith never letting go of him.

Lance’s leg screams in pain, and sweat starts to bead on his forehead, but they go slowly, step by step, until they’ve crossed the room.

Neither realizes how far they’ve come until Keith is bumping into the wall.

They both stop, and Lance drops down onto a bench, letting out a breath.

“Jesus,” Lance says, exhausted.

Keith drops down next to him.

“No. That was all you.” He says, looking at him in a way that makes Lance think he can see right through him. He can see what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling.

He often wonders what Keith would say if he knew.

He’s only said the words out loud one time. A few months ago, during yet another simulation in which Keith died in his arms. It was how Eliara found out the subject of the simulations.

He hadn’t meant for it to slip out, but he could never tell that he was inside his own head until he was pulled back out.

_I love you, Keith_ , he had said. And Keith had said it back.

But that wasn’t real. This, sitting beside Keith, too far apart, always too far apart, is real.

“Wanna go again?” He asks, anxious to do something and take his mind off of it.

Keith nods, and gets back up. Lance pushes to his feet, and lets Keith step in front of him. Keith’s hands settle on his shoulders, and Lance relishes in the feel of Keith’s calloused fingers on his skin.

For a moment, neither of them moves. Lance is locked in Keith’s gaze, and he’s content to stay there forever.

But the moment ends, inevitably, and Keith tears his eyes away. Then he’s moving back, and Lance is moving forward. Every step is easier, though painful, and by the time they’ve crossed the room three times Lance barely needs Keith’s help anymore.

They’re so entranced in this little dance that they don’t hear the others enter.

When they reach the end of the room, they hear a whistle, and Keith’s hands drop away from Lance’s shoulders faster than Lance can blink. Without even asking, he turns, blocking the group’s view of Lance and his scars.

Grateful for the wordless protection, Lance grabs his shirt from the bench and pulls it on. Only then does he drop down, trying to smile at the others, feeling weird doing so. He stops trying, and lets his face smooth out into a tired slate.

“Well done, Lance,” Allura says, her face alight with pride and joy. Shiro is proud, too, that much is clear.

Pidge is grinning from ear to ear, and Hunk has a tear in his eye.

“That was amazing, buddy,” Hunk says. Lance can tell he wants to rush over and hug him, but he doesn’t think he could handle being touched anymore.

It occurs to him that he doesn’t mind Keith’s touch. He decides to push that away for now.

“Lance, if you’d like to go back and rest you can miss out on training today. We’re just going to be running and doing some strength training.” Shiro says. Normally, Lance wouldn’t ditch training.

The old Lance wouldn’t have.

But he’s tired, and he’s trying to keep the facade of strength up, but it’s falling.

So he takes the out.

“Help me back?” Lance asks, looking to Keith.

Keith, caught off guard, goes pink at the ears, and nods. He doesn’t miss the look the group is giving him, and neither does Lance.

Keith takes his arm, and leads him out of the room. Lance doesn’t need the help, but Keith doesn’t pull his arm back, and Lance doesn’t ask him to.

They make their way back to Lance’s room in silence. Once Lance is inside, the empty doorway separating them, Lance gives Keith a small smile.

“Thanks.”

Keith’s lips pull thin, like he has something he wants to say, but he decides against it. He just nods.

“See you later.” He says.

“Yeah. Sure.” Lance says.

Then the door is closing between them, and Lance is more confused than he’s ever been. Because there are a thousand things he wants to say to Keith, too, but he doesn't know if he'll ever be brave enough to tell him. 

**THEN**

As a general rule, the paladins avoid talking about Lance. He is a raw wound that no one dares poke. He sits heavily on everyone’s chests, but they don’t let him out. If they did, they’d have to feel the things they only allow themselves to feel during the dark of night.

But tonight, it seems everyone is missing Lance more than usual. It starts with Pidge wandering to Shiro’s room after dinner, their sadness too big to handle that day. Then comes Hunk. And finally, Keith.

They all gather on the floor in Shiro’s room, Shiro and Pidge against the bed, Keith and Hunk against the wall across from them. Pidge ends up leaning against Shiro, who wraps an arm around them absentmindedly.

Since Lance was taken, they’ve all gotten closer. Pidge treats Shiro like the older brother she lost, as do Hunk and Keith.

But Shiro is hurting, too. Shiro lost Lance, too. He has an ache just as big as they do. It’s for that reason that Keith suffers alone, rather than pushing his own pain onto another.

Tonight, they let themselves reminisce. They talk about the first memory they have of Lance, about the time they laughed the hardest with him, about the things they miss the most.

What starts off humorous quickly turns sad, inevitably. With no Lance here to corroborate their stories or protest them, they all feel the emptiness.

Lance McClain is a hole in all of their hearts, and no amount of paintings can be placed in front of him to hide the pain.

“He still believed I’d find Matt. He didn’t doubt it one bit. He was just good like that.” Pidge says, their voice breaking.

“Sometimes I think he was the best of us.” They say. They duck their head. No one argues.

It’s true, and they all know it. At their core, the very center of them, the deepest one can go, it is Lance that is the best. He may be sarcastic and dorky and at times annoying, but he is pure and good.

Maybe that’s what makes his loss so devastating.

Tears roll down Pidge’s cheeks, and they reach up to wipe them away, cheeks flushed. Hunk too has tears in his eyes and stands up as they start to fall. He gives a quickly constructed excuse, and exits the room, swiping at his cheeks and sniffling. Pidge follows a moment later, their sob echoing through the hall as they leave.

Shiro’s face stays hard, just as Keith’s does. They’ve both perfected their shells.

It’s only the two of them now. Keith moves to stand, only to be stopped in his tracks by Shiro’s words.

“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.” He says, like the fact that Keith loves Lance isn't a question, like he’s stating the weather or his own name.

“You don’t have to shut us all out. I know-we all know-that you’re suffering. But you don’t have to do it alone. We all miss Lance.” He continues.

A blush rises to Keith’s cheeks before he can stop it; he’s too caught off guard to throw his wall up.

But he tries.

“I don’t love Lance. I don’t even think we’re friends.” It’s the same argument he gave the lions when they first brought it up, but now, a month later, Keith knows that it’s true. He loves Lance, and thinks he always will. But that much is irrelevant considering where Lance is, considering Keith isn't brave, considering Lance could never love him back.

Still, he doesn’t need word getting around that the castle. So he denies it.

But it’s Shiro. And he can’t lie to Shiro. He can try, but he’s never successful. Shiro is a human lie detector. Or, human-Galra in this case.

Keith lets out a sigh, and sinks back to the floor. He draws his knees to his chest, arms slung loosely around them. He tips his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. He feels like he’s been awake his entire life. He just wants to sleep. He just wants Lance back.

“Does he know?” Shiro asks.

Keith opens his eyes, looking at him.

“I didn’t even know.” He replies. Shiro’s brows arch slightly, before his face settles back out.

“Do you think he feels the same?” He asks.

Keith’s mouth set in a thin line.

“Does it matter now?”

“Of course it matters.”

“Lance is most likely dead. It doesn’t matter if I loved him or he loved me. None of that matters anymore. It doesn’t matter.” Keith snaps, anger and sadness swelling like a balloon inside his chest.

“Keith,” Shiro says, voice soft, settling over Keith like a blanket. It immediately soothes some of the anger, and Keith lets out a shaking breath.

“We’re never gonna get him back, are we?” Keith asks.

Shiro’s lips part slightly, sadness clouding his features. There’s a little bit of hopelessness in there, and Keith doesn’t miss it. It’s answer enough for him.

“Yeah. I figured.”

“We’re gonna find him, Keith. We are.”

“Like we were gonna find Matt? How long has it been since Pidge started looking?” Keith says, voice sour.

Shiro can tell Keith is trying to pick a fight. Keith is angry, carrying this pain in his hands, with no idea where-or how-to put it down. Throwing fists is an easy way to try and lessen the load. Both of them knows it never works; Keith doesn’t really care.

When Shiro doesn’t take the bait, Keith deflates.

“I’ve never had a-people like you guys. I don’t know how to deal with him being gone.” Keith admits.

“None of us do. That’s the secret.”

“What am I supposed to do? With all of this?”

“You still love people when they’re gone. You just keep them safe inside you. Forever.”

“Lance wouldn’t even want me to do that.”

“You don’t know that.”

Keith bristles, shaking his head vehemently.

“No. You can’t do that. You can’t give me hope. Not when we both know Lance isn’t coming home.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Shiro closes his eyes. It seems like a thousand years of exhaustion settle on him at once. All of a sudden, Keith feels as if he’s looking at an old man, rather than a 25-year-old. Nearly 26. Has his birthday passed? They’ve been so focused on finding Lance and furthering the other alliances that no one has been able to focus on things like that.

Keith realizes that his own birthday passed without him noticing. While he and the others have kept track of how long Lance has been gone, no one is tracking anything else.

He’s 18. An adult, on earth.

“My birthday was a few days ago,” Keith says after a moment.

Shiro is noticeably glad for a lighter subject, and gives Keith a small smile.

“Happy belated birthday, Keith.” He says.

Keith nods absently.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He should be happy. He should be excited to have survived another year, especially considering where he is now.

But he isn’t. Instead, all he can think about is time, and the fact that every day it continues to take Keith further away from Lance. As far as he knows, it always will.

Keith gets to his feet, and gives Shiro a halfhearted excuse for leaving. Shiro himself is entranced in his own thoughts, and doesn’t question Keith’s quick departure.

Instead of going back to his own room, though, Keith finds himself outside of Lance’s. Before he can stop himself he’s stepping inside, into a room full of stale air, untouched for months. No one dares do anything to his room, like doing so would hurt Lance in some way.

Keith shuts the door behind him, stepping into the room. He scans the walls, the things Lance has tacked up and sitting on his shelf. His room looks more like home than Keith’s does. Keith’s own room has no personal items save for his blade.

Even Lance’s bed is unmade. It’s almost like he just rolled out of it this morning.

Keith’s gaze lands on the jacket strewn on the end of the bed, and he takes the fabric in his fingers, bringing it to his nose.

It smells so much like Lance that it brings Keith to his knees. He drops, sinking to the floor, the fabric clutched in his hand. He sits there until exhaustion sets in, and he sprawls out on Lance’s floor, still clutching the jacket like a stuffed animal.

He wants him back. He wants him back so bad.

Keith falls asleep this way. When he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend Lance is still there.

Almost.

 

 


	4. part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall!!! i hit 1k reads!!! this is my first voltron fic so to reach that milestone is super rad!!! yall are the bomb!!! thanks!!!!
> 
> also: i dont have a beta so please ignore any typos i missed! my writing software loves to autocorrect Shiro to Shirt. its a struggle.

**NOW**

Keith often wonders if he’s the only one kept up at night by the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve lost. He’s always been an insomniac, but it seems it’s gotten worse since he got to the castle.

He misses sleep. He misses dreams.

Tonight, yet another night in which he runs a never-ending race to catch sleep, and continues not to catch her, he hears the scream.

It’s so full of fear it makes his blood run cold. He’s out of bed in a second, not even bothering to pull a shirt on before he’s grabbing his knife and bolting out the door. He races down the hall, searching for the source.

The screams are coming from Lance’s room. He isn’t the only one who heard them; both Shiro and Allura are standing outside the door.

“He’s having another nightmare.”

Keith’s brows furrow, a silent question.

“We don’t think he’d do too well with us barging in,” Shiro says.

“Would you go?” Allura asks.

Keith’s cheeks flush, his lips parting.

“Why would I-“ He stops at the look on Shiro’s face. Shiro was the first one who realized, so there’s no point hiding that from him. And if Shiro knows, it’s likely that Allura does. Everyone probably does at this point.

But what he doesn’t understand is why they think Lance would do best with Keith, of all people. Keith may love Lance, but that doesn’t in any way mean those feelings are reciprocated.

“Please, Keith,” Allura says softly.

With a sigh, Keith loosens his white-knuckled grip on the knife, and opens the door. It shuts behind him when he steps in.

Inside, Lance is tangled in his sheets, tears rolling down his cheeks as he thrashes, screams slipping through bloodied lips. Keith carefully makes his way toward the bed, setting his knife on the bedside table, knowing if he scares Lance any further, he might end up with a black eye or worse.

But then Lance starts raking at his skin, fingernails raising the skin on his arms, and Keith lunges, grabbing Lance and pinning his arms to his chest. He wraps his arms around him, holding him tight, waiting for Lance to wake himself up. Since he can’t see from behind, he mutters “it’s alright” over and over until Lance’s body relaxes, though it trembles.

Once he’s safe, Keith lets him go. He’s a little surprised Lance doesn’t pull away considering how averse he is to touch these days.

Keith doesn’t dare move, treating Lance like a deer in headlights. One move, and he’ll bolt. But he has nowhere to go, not right now.

Lance catches his breath, gasping for air. He’s wearing as little as Keith, in only sweatpants, and Keith is very aware of the exposed skin.

Keith’s eyes fall to the scars that lace Lance’s figure, but once again, he doesn’t find them scary or gross. They’re part of Lance now.

“What are you doing in here?” Lance asks.

“You were screaming,” Keith says.

Lance’s cheeks flush visibly, even in the dark.

“Did I wake anybody else up?”

“No.” Keith lies. He doesn’t want Lance to know that the others were outside the door, and he definitely doesn’t want him to know that they sent him in.

Lance nods, raking a hand through his mussed and sweaty hair.

“Did I wake you up?” He asks.

“No,” Keith says.

“I don’t sleep much anymore, either,” Lance says. It’s such a simple and seemingly normal statement, but coming from Lance, it’s admitting weakness. And Keith knows how big that is. Especially for someone like Lance, who lives his life beneath a facade of jokes and happiness.

He isn’t okay, and he’s letting Keith see that.

Keith doesn’t let himself read into that, and moves to stand up. The minute he shifts a hand snakes out and closes around his wrist.

“Don’t,” Lance says, voice low.

“Don’t go,” Lance says.

“Just-just don’t go. Please.” Lance says.

It takes everything in Keith not to shake. It takes everything in Keith not to break. Without a word, he pushes back the covers and slides beneath them. Lance settles back down, both on their backs, not touching. If Keith were brave, maybe he’d reach over and take Lance’s hand.

For a long time, so long Keith thinks Lance has fallen asleep, neither of them speaks. The darkness of the room closes in around them, encasing them in their own little world. Keith is aware of every move Lance makes, of his presence beside him.

A soft voice breaks through the darkness.

“I see her every time I close my eyes,” Lance says, voice so quiet Keith can barely hear it.

He doesn’t have to ask to know who she’s talking about. The woman who took his leg, who took the old Lance and created the new one.

“She can’t get to you here.”

“She doesn’t need to,” Lance says.

And he gets it. He hates that he does, but he gets it. He understands that sometimes the memories of a thing are worse than the thing itself. That it is the memories and the ache of remembering that hurt the most.

“You’re the only one who doesn’t look at me like I’m broken. It’s weird.” Lance says.

“Because you’re not.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“You’re different. Not broken.”

“Bad different.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“You’re still impossible.”

Keith can see a small smile out of his peripheral.

“You missed me,” Lance says, a hint of his old cockiness springing forth.

Keith doesn’t know how to reply.

He settles for, “It was a lot quieter without you.”

“It was quiet there, too.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Keith says, careful not to push Lance anywhere he doesn’t want to go.

“I know.”

“Did you know about the lions? Before?” Keith asks.

“That we could both meld with them? No.”

“It’s weird.” He wants to know what Lance thinks. If he wonders about the connection like Keith does.

“Makes sense.”

“It doesn’t. Our lions are-“ A blush rises to Keith’s cheeks, and he’s grateful for the disguise of the dark, “our lions. And we’re…us.”

“We’re friends,” Lance says, voice just a bit off. Barely noticeable.

“Are we?”

“Yes. I mean, we’re basically spooning right now. That’s definitely friendship level.”

Keith snorts.

“You’ve obviously never spooned before in your life.”

“And you have?”

“None of your business.”

“No kissing and telling, huh?”

Keith rolls his eyes, bringing his hands up to settle on the back of his head, arms above him.

“There was never anybody…important.” He says after a moment.

Lance shifts.

“Me neither.”

“Seriously? In all of those girls you’ve wooed, there hasn’t been one?”

“They weren’t all girls,” Lance says pointedly. “And, no. There hasn’t been.”

_They weren’t all girls._ Damn Lance for giving Keith just enough hope to hold onto. Damn him for making him wish.

Keith wishes he could hate Lance. It would make this all so much easier.

But Lance is Lance. He’s dorky and funny and brave and strong. Keith could never.

“One day,” Keith says.

“I think I’ve got a little bit too much baggage these days, but thanks,” Lance says, trying to joke, too much truth in his words for it to work.

“The right person won’t care.”

“Look at you with the relationship advice. Things really have changed.” Lance says, trying to steer away from seriousness in a very Lance-like way.

It’s one of the only times in the few weeks since Lance got back that he’s really seen the old Lance. It seems to only happen when the two are alone.

Keith is so grateful to see it he doesn’t even realize that it seems to be reserved for him.

They’re getting Lance back. That’s all that matters.

-

Keith wakes with his nose pressed to someone’s cheek, an arm slung across their waist. His fingers graze somewhat lumpy and warm skin.

He opens his eyes to find a sleeping Lance laying on his back, tucked against Keith. His bad leg is on top of Keith’s, their other ankles twined together. Right now, they probably resemble one single person.

Lance’s head is turned his way, calm and smooth in sleep. Keith reaches over, tentatively tracing a finger along the scar that mars Lance’s face. It’s deeper in some places than others, likely placed with the sole purpose of disfiguration.

Keith doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want Lance to wake up. He wants to stay here forever. In this bed, holding Lance, content and warm.

But the world has proven itself to not give a shit about what Keith wants, and a moment later there is a knock on the door.

“Breakfast, Lance!” Pidge calls. They don’t wait for the door to open, their footsteps padding down the hall toward Hunk’s room proving as much.

Lance’s eyes snap open, and Keith can feel his pulse skyrocket.

Keith pulls his arm away, shifting back in the hopes that Lance isn’t awake enough to realize that they were definitely snuggling two seconds ago.

“You stayed,” Lance says, voice heavy with sleep.

“You asked me to.”

“Since when have you ever done anything I’ve asked?” Lance asks.

Keith can’t help but smile, and sits up.

As much as he doesn’t want to leave, he really doesn’t want to be here when Pidge decides to come back to bug Lance for not making it to breakfast on time.

“I’ll see you at breakfast,” Keith says, already climbing out of bed. He’s once again struck by how little clothes he has on, and doesn’t miss Lance’s gaze lingering on his bare torso.

“Where are you going?” Lance asks, enough panic in his voice to make Keith soften.

“Just to change. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He says. Lance nods, pretending not to have been so vulnerable a moment ago, and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

He doesn’t say anything more, and neither does Keith. Instead, he leaves the room and heads down the hall, and tries to tell himself that he didn’t just have the best night of sleep he’s had in years.

**THEN**

It is during the 9th month of Lance’s incarceration that Eliara changes things up again. She typically alternates between some kind of torture and the simulations, all the while trying to improve the formula and put Lance through as much hell as possible.

But today, Lance isn’t put into that familiar chair. He is strapped to a cold metal table, and stripped. He is left in only his boxers, shivering against the metal. The soldier straps down his arms, his head, but only one of his legs. The leather strap only folds over the top of his leg and his ankle on one leg, whereas the other is thoroughly strapped down.

“What are you doing?” Lance asks, fear unfurling in his chest. He can barely breathe; he has to get out. He has to get off this table. He isn’t in enough of a right mind to predict what’s about to happen, but he knows it’s going to be bad.

The soldier smiles, and steps back. The familiar click of boots fills the room, wrapping around Lance like a noose.

“Morning, paladin,” Eliara says, in a brighter mood than Lance is used to.

“What is this?” Lance asks, trying not to let the fear that has taken over his entire body filter into his voice. But it does, and it only makes Eliara’s smile widen.

“I don’t know if you know this, Lance, but you have an incredible pain tolerance. Not when we first started, but now? It’s amazing. Truly.”

“I’m so glad you’re impressed. That’s what I was going for.” Lance says, deadpan. He doesn’t have the motivation to really throw himself into his comebacks these days, so it falls flat.

“We’re going to further our research on the pain standpoint. As you know, you haven’t lost consciousness once.”

Lance closes his eyes. He knows.

“That’s why we’re taking a step forward today. Bring the equipment over?” Eliara says, speaking the question to the soldier. He gives a gruff response.

Lance doesn’t open his eyes until he feels the heat above his leg. They snap open, and Lance sucks in a gasp.

Eliara stands over him with some kind of machine Lance has never seen. It’s like a saw of some type, but rather than a blade, it has some kind of laser.

If Lance still had a sense of humor, he’d make the point that he’s about to be burned by a lightsaber.

Everything hits him at once. The heat, the fact that everything but his leg is tightly strapped down, the soldier coming to stand above him and placing his large hands on Lance’s shoulders.

No. He isn’t about to be burned. He’s going to be cut into, he's going to have things taken away. Not things: his _leg_. For no reason, none other than the sick satisfaction Eliara gets when Lance screams.

There is no test going on here. Eliara isn’t doing this to test pain tolerance, to improve the realness of her simulations.

This is to hurt Lance, to hurt him and push him beyond return.

But Lance doesn’t know if he can survive this. With no pain meds, no anesthesia. No healing pod.

“Please. Please, please don’t. Please don’t.” Lance begs, tears welling in his eyes. He hasn’t cried in one of Eliara’s sessions yet, but he’s too full of fear to care about how embarrassing it is. He’d pee his pants if it meant Eliara would pull him off this table.

“Please. Eliara, please.” He says, words blurring together as he pleas and pleas and pleas.

She doesn’t listen, just as Lance knew she wouldn’t.

He thinks of his friends, the ones back in the castle. He wonders if they’re still looking for him.

He thinks of Keith. It’s in that moment that he realizes he’ll never get the chance to tell him that he loves him, _he loves him, fuck, he loves him_.

He thinks of his siblings, their laughs and their smiles and the fun they had growing up.

He thinks of his family. His father. His mother.

_Mamá, help me. Help me._

“No one is coming to help you, little paladin,” Eliara says.

Then she begins to cut, and Lance holds on for a full ten seconds before the blackness overwhelms him.

**NOW**

Keith is on his way back to his room when he hears the music. It’s something old, something vaguely familiar.

He thinks it might be something Disney. He only knows because he had a foster sibling, a girl a bit younger than him named Ariana, who dragged him to the tv and made him watch her shows with him. He complained, but secretly, he loved it. He loved laughing with her and feeling like he had a family.

He hasn’t seen Ariana in years, since he was 10 years old. But he remembers singing along to camp rock with her, dancing in the living room until their foster parents came and ordered them to bed.

Keith doesn’t bother knocking, the music too loud for Lance to hear.

He opens the door, not even stepping inside. He just stands in the doorway, watching as Lance wobbles around unsteadily and tries to dance to the Hoedown Throwdown. It’s horrible and ungraceful and dorky, but Keith’s heart is so full of love and happiness he’s embarrassed of himself.

Lance is there, dancing like the old Lance would, though with a little less poise. He’s acting somewhat normal.

Lance has spent the last week in Keith’s room, knocking on the door hesitantly at night. He’s always gone by the time Keith wakes up, but the bed always has his imprint.

Keith doesn’t know what they are, if they’re anything. They’re friends now, he thinks. But neither of them broaches the subject; he doesn’t think either knows how to.

It’s only with Keith that Lance finds some semblance of his old self. The rest of the time it feels like Lance is grasping for straws that aren’t there, and the others are doing the same.

Lance dances for another twenty seconds before he notices Keith. His cheeks don’t even flush; he just ambles forward and pulls Keith inside. The door closes behind him, and Lance holds onto Keith’s hands, modeling the moves for him.

“You know the moves, right?” Lance asks.

Keith shakes his head, to which Lance shakes his head.

“I forgot. You grew up under a rock.”

“Shut up.”

Lance grins, and nods to the music.

“Just do what it says. It’s easy.”

“Hawk to the sky? How is that easy?”

Lance laughs, and shows him how to do all the moves. Keith likes that Lance can’t dance anymore; it makes him feel more comfortable about his suckiness.

The two dance around Lance’s room, Lance never letting go of Keith, though he doesn’t need to be held onto anymore. Keith doesn’t dare pull away, and keeps as tight a grip on Lance.

The song ends, and leads right into a slow ballad, one with only an acoustic guitar and what might be Taylor Swift circa 2000’s.

And just when Keith is about to pull away, Lance tugs him closer. He moves his hands to his waist, and Keith’s own automatically move up to his shoulders. He feels out of place and awkward, but Lance doesn’t bat an eye.

Then they’re dancing. It’s slow and hesitant and a little bit clumsy due to Keith not knowing how to dance and Lance still working around the prosthetic. Keith’s heart threatens to burst out of his chest, but he keeps his cool, swaying back and forth with Lance.

Only after the first song ends and shifts into another slow one do the boys get comfortable. Then Lance is stepping closer, and Keith is tightening his grip, and Lance is resting his cheek against Keith’s shoulder, and Keith doesn’t think he’s ever felt as calm as he does right now.

“I was awake when they took my leg.” Lance murmurs against Keith’s shoulder, voice muffled by the fabric.

Keith doesn’t pull back for fear of closing the door that Lance is opening. Instead of replying, he just tugs him a bit closer. Lance takes this as a response, and does the same.

“It got infected. They didn’t do anything about it until I had blood poisoning. I thought losing the leg was painful. But man, that…that burning…it was like being eaten alive.” Lance says, voice hollow. Keith’s own stomach turns at the thought.

It makes him sick to think that Lance went through this never-ending cycle of pain for a year. For a year, he was alone. He was hurting. And Keith couldn’t do a damn thing to help him.

“Thank you for not looking at me like I'm broken,” Lance says, voice so soft Keith can barely hear it. Only then does Keith pull back, gaze lingering on the scar on Lance’s face. He brings a hand up, tracing his thumb down it. Lance closes his eyes against the touch, a gesture so soft Keith isn’t sure what to do.

He’s never seen Lance like this. Completely without his walls, without any protection. This is Lance, at his core. This is Lance without anything to hide behind.

“You’re not,” Keith says, just like he did before. It isn’t eloquent, it isn’t poetic, it isn’t anything like Keith wants to be. 

Lance’s eyes flick from his eyes to his mouth, then back up, and in that moment, Keith swears he can read Lance’s mind. He’s about to be kissed, and he wants to be, he wants to be so badly.

They’re both leaning in and Keith can feel Lance’s breath on his lips and he swears he can hear Lance’s own erratic heartbeat and everything is finally working itself out and-

Lance pulls away. He steps out of Keith’s touch, clearing his throat, avoiding Keith’s gaze.

“Uh-I think I’m gonna crash. I’ll see you in the morning.” He says. As if they weren’t just pressed together, as if they weren’t inches away from a kiss, as if none of it ever happened.

Maybe Lance wishes it hadn’t.

Keith nods, his cheeks flushing with heat. He doesn’t even say goodbye as he leaves, making a beeline for his own room.

Once he’s in bed, he spends hours thinking over the encounter. How long it was, how short it was. How he wishes it had gone differently.

But Lance made his stance clear. Whatever Keith thought was happening isn’t happening.

Lance is just Lance, and Keith is just Keith, and they were never meant to collide.


	5. part V

**NOW**

Lance isn’t getting better. Whatever slight progress he was making broke after the almost-whatever it was that happened in Lance’s room two weeks away has splintered. Lance is withdrawn, shaky. The only time anyone, even Keith, hears him speak is when he screams at night. But he has his door locked, and doesn’t come to Keith’s room anymore.

They don’t know what to do. Keith doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to help him, or if he even can. He doesn’t know if any of them can.

It is 8 days after Lance starts to spiral that they start talking about other options.

“We can’t send him back to earth. It isn’t like he can tell his parents what happened to him. I mean, the dude is missing a leg. How do you explain that?” Hunk says.

“So we give him a story,” Shiro says, “but the bottom line is that he isn’t getting better here. He’s getting worse. We have to do something.”

“Maybe seeing his family would be good for him,” Pidge says, speaking up from their spot at the end of the table, looking up from their tinkering. They weren’t really doing anything, simply using the object in their hand as an excuse to look at something other than the group.

Lance isn’t here. He’s sleeping, they think. Allura hates using the cameras installed in their rooms, but took a quick look just to see.

Lance was curled up in his bed, a pillow to his chest. He had every light in his room on.

“Why are you all giving up on him?” Keith asks, speaking up for the first time. All eyes shift to him, but he looks at Shiro. They’re all participating, but it is Shiro who should be fighting for Lance, not against him. He’s their leader. He’s supposed to keep them together.

“He needs our help. He doesn’t need us to ship him off because it’s hard.” Keith says.

“We’ve tried. But it’s been over a month. Do you think Lance is getting better?” He asks.

A week ago, Keith would have said yes. But then he ruined it. And now he can’t even help the person he loves.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe Lance would do better somewhere else, away from them. Away from _him_.

“We just want him to get better,” Allura says softly.

“You want him off your hands.” Keith retorts.

“That’s enough, Keith,” Shiro warns.

Keith pushes back in his chair and stands up, shaking his head.

“None of us can begin to understand what Lance went through. Not even you, Shiro. We can't begin to understand how bad it was. Lance was alone for a _year_. And you want to push him away now?”

“It isn’t permanent. Just so he can get some time away from…”

“From what? Us?” Keith asks. Shiro’s wince is enough of an answer for Keith.

“From all of this.” Allura amends.

Keith is steaming. He shoves his chair back in, and goes for the door. Only in the doorway does he stop and look back.

“Lance wouldn’t give up on any of us. Just think about that before you ship him away.”

-

Keith wakes up too late. He didn’t set an alarm because he didn’t think he was going to fall asleep. But it’s 8:54, and Lance was scheduled to leave at 8:45. Which means he must be gone.

Keith practically falls out of bed in the effort, running through the door and down the hallway. It’s quiet, everyone likely watching Lance’s pod fly away. The only sound is the smack of his bare feet against the floor, the whir of the air as it flies past him.

He didn’t get to say goodbye. He has to say goodbye.

Keith slams to a halt when he reaches the others, unable to see past them. He pushes past Shiro, not caring to be kind or cautious.

He has to say goodbye.

When he sees the empty pod bay, everything inside him collapses. His lips part, the strings inside of him clipped all at once. He doesn’t hear the others behind him, he doesn’t feel the cold of the air that is always pumped through the hangar. He just feels the gaping hole where Lance was.

Then he sees a flash of brown hair, and that familiar limp in his peripheral.

From one of the other pods, Lance climbs out, brows furrowed. He’s just tossed his things in, and is adorned in earthen clothes that Keith has never seen.

But in that moment, Keith doesn’t care that he’s leaving, because he’s still here. If he is going to leave, at least Keith will get the chance to tell him goodbye. He’s _here_.

Lance is coming toward him and Keith is running and they meet in the middle, colliding. Lance’s arms wind around Keith, and Keith is holding him just as tight, and Keith thinks they might be spinning. He loses his balance, and they stumble backward until Keith can steady them.

Lance buries his face in Keith’s hair, fingers digging into his shoulders. This, here, is the entire world. The entire universe. It is every single fiber of Keith’s being settling at once, going calm. Everything is still. Everything is here.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Lance says, voice muffled. Keith lets out a breath, closing his eyes and pressing his lips to Lance’s hair. Lance shakes at the kiss, leaning further into Keith.

“I had to,” Keith says. It’s the truth; there is nothing else to say.

They both realize that the room is occupied at the same time, and pull back. Both their cheeks flame, and Lance takes another step back.

“I-don’t wanna miss my flight,” Lance says, voice catching. The moment is broken, both pretending it didn’t even happen.

Keith fights the urge to stop him.

The others made their choice. Lance made his.

If this will help Lance get better, he has to support it. Even if it means letting him leave without telling him the truth; even if it means letting him leave without telling him how he feels.

“Try not to do anything stupid,” Keith says.

“Me? Never.”

Keith’s lips quirk up. Then Lance is turning around, and he’s walking towards his pod, and he’s climbing in.

He turns to face them just as he clicks to shut the door. Keith is already turning away, unable to watch.

“Keith!” His name rings across the hangar, and he stops, looking back. He doesn’t have enough hope to believe Lance is staying; he’s expecting some snarky remark, some clue that maybe Lance can get his old self back.

But Lance doesn’t get the chance to say anything. Just as he opens his mouth, mouth forming the letter I, the door slams shut, erasing Keith from Lance’s view.

Then his pod is ejected from the ship.

**THEN**

Though they’re all reluctant to do so, the paladins begin the work of finding a new pilot for the blue lion two months after Lance’s disappearance. The Galra threat is in no way gone, and without Voltron, they lose their allies, and they lose the war.

Allura and Shiro do the recruiting, scanning databases and reading through personality tests and taking trips to planets, all in the hopes of finding someone compatible.

The only person the Blue lion allows to step within ten feet of her is a boy named Aidan, found 6 months after Lance’s abduction, 4 months after they started looking. He’s from New York City, and came to the Garrison only a few months prior. It was Allura who selected him.

With sandy blonde hair and clear eyes, looking like he belongs on the beaches of California instead of space, he’s quite possibly the most beautiful boy Keith has ever seen. He is flirty and funny and nice.

He spends a few days in the castle, all the while trying to get closer and closer to Blue. It’s slow going, but by the third day, Aidan comes to dinner to tell everyone that she has allowed him to touch her.

With Lance, the connection to Blue was made quickly.

But Lance isn’t here, and they need a paladin, and they need it fast. Aidan is their best shot.

Keith, wandering to the hangar late at night, as he’s done on and off for months, is surprised to find the large room already occupied. Laying on his back a few inches from one of Blue’s paws, talking quietly to her, is Aidan. He looks at ease, like he doesn’t care that Blue could smash or obliterate him in an instant if she decides that she doesn’t like him.

Something Keith has noticed about Aidan: he seems to fit in anywhere, never out of place.

It’s odd for someone like Kieth, who has always felt like the extra piece in the puzzle everywhere he goes.

Aidan turns his head when he hears the door, lips curling up in a grin. Keith stops, about to turn around and leave, not wanting to bug him, when Aidan sits up.

“Don’t go on my account.” He says.

“Sorry. I should probably get back to my room, anyway.” Keith says, though they both know he has no intention of doing so. He’s only known Aidan a few days, but it’s incredibly difficult to lie to him, simply because he sees through it so easily.

“I won’t bite. Promise. I don’t think she will, either.” Aidan says, nodding at Blue.

Both Blue and Red nudge the back of his mind, happy to see him, but for now, he pushes them away. He sits down on the floor near Aidan, who is leaning against Blue’s paw.

He catches Keith staring, and gives him a reassuring smile.

“She won’t hurt me. We’ve talked things through.”

“You made the connection?” Keith asks, both relief and sadness hitting him at once.

“Something like that.”

Keith is about to press further when Aidan shifts, gaze settling on Keith, boring into him. Keith does his best not to shrink against it, keeping his chin up.

“What brings you here so late?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Keith replies, not eager to disclose the nature of his restless mind with a stranger.

“I’ve heard you pacing the last few nights. Don’t sleep much?”

Heat crawls up Keith’s neck, but he shakes it off.

“No.” He says simply.

Aidan’s gaze slides across the room to Red, then to the other lions, before settling somewhere far off.

“I heard about you at the Garrison. The famous Keith Kogane. I didn’t think you were real.” Aidan says, lifting his eyes to Keith’s.

“Me?” Keith asks. If anyone had stories told about them at the Garrison, it shouldn’t be him. After all, it was Lance who raised hell, who executed prank after prank.

Keith is just the guy who got kicked out.

“Everybody thought you were dead out in the desert.”

“I’m not dead.”

Aidan smiles.

“No, you’re not.”

“Do you ever stop smiling?” Keith asks, arching his brows, lips turned down in a frown.

This only makes Aidan’s smile widen.

“Not when I’m looking at something I like.”

Keith’s heart jumps, and he averts his gaze. He doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to say in response to that.

Aidan scoots across the floor, stopping once his legs are touching Keith’s. He reaches a hand out, fingers touching Keith’s jaw, a silent question.

Keith doesn’t know why he turns his head. Maybe because Aidan is beautiful and charming and here.

But he does, and then he’s looking right into Aidan’s blue eyes, and their faces are inches apart.

“Yes or no?” He asks. Keith licks his lips.

“Yes.” He breathes.

Then Aidan is pressing his lips against Keith’s, hands coming up to cup Keith’s cheeks. Keith’s own hands land on Aidan’s waist, slipping beneath his shirt, fingers moving along warm skin, gripping his hips.

Aidan takes this as an invitation to push further, parting his lips against Keith’s.

It is a kiss, a good one, but the wrong one. It’s the wrong mouth and the wrong smell and the wrong feel, and Aidan knows this just as well as Keith.

That’s why he pulls away first.

This time his smile is sad when he gets to his feet. Keith follows suit, unsure of what happened, not even realizing it himself.

“I’m not going to be piloting Blue, Keith.” Aidan says.

“What? Why not?“

“She hasn’t quite gotten over her previous pilot. She isn’t the only one.” He says.

Keith’s cheeks flush, and he stumbles over his words. “Aidan, I’m-“

“It’s okay, Keith. It really is.” Aidan says. He reaches out and flicks a stray hair off Keith’s forehead before stepping back. He makes his way for the door, only stopping once he’s reached it.

“Keith.” He says.

“When you find that boy you lost, just tell him the truth.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith says, lying straight through his teeth.

Aidan knows it, but doesn’t call him out on it, his smile remaining.

“See you on the other side, Kogane.”


	6. part VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as far as i can tell, there's gonna be 2 chapters left. i dont plan shit ever so that could totally change but!! for now!! tentatively!!! 2 chapters left!!
> 
> thanks so much for all of your kind comments!!! i read them all and appreciate every one of you who decides to comment. yall are the bomb. 
> 
> also: my knowledge of spanish is three years of totally half assed high school spanish. i apologize if the little bits are horrible. please correct me if its wrong!!!

**THEN**

Approximately 68 out of his 82 attempts to escape ago, Lance started to give up. His plans became less methodical and practical and spiraled into half-assed ones that had 0% success rates. They became Lance trying to dart out the door the moment the cell opened, with no thought of what to do after, or him using his nails to scrape at the restraints in the chair, or even trying to hurt Eliara whilst she tortured him.

They all failed. Every single one of them.

He hasn’t tried anything since they took his leg; he spends all of his time asleep or trying to get there, thinking as little as possible. In his haze of healing and pain, most of his thoughts aren’t really coherent. He’s done lots of hallucinating, opening his eyes to find his mother knitting beside him or Keith sitting against the wall. He’s done lots of praying, though he left religion behind months ago.

He gets lucky. His escape isn’t thought out or smart or particularly well done. Honestly, truly, it is 100% luck.

He dies. Or, at least, comes really close. One minute he’s on the floor of his cell, getting sleepier and sleepier, the next he’s waking up in a freezing cold room.

He jerks to a sitting position, gasping for breath. He takes in his surroundings; the grisly metal tables stained with blood positioned around the room, the much too earthen like doors on the walls.

It’s the Galra version of a morgue, but much less sanitary.

From the feeling of movement, he knows he’s on a ship. From the lighting, the hum in the walls, and the same grainy metal walls, he reckons it's still the prison ship.

His heart rate must have slowed down so much his pulse was unreadable, and someone-the soldier, as Eliara would have dissected him immediately-dumped him here. A few more hours of unconsciousness, he’d probably have woken up with his innards on display, Eliara standing over him.

_Think, Lance. Think._

He hasn’t had to use his brain in months, and it’s sluggish and slow. Plus, the pain in his stump is enough to take most of his attention.

_You will not die here._

Lance scans the room, looking for something to help him walk. He isn’t lucky enough to expect a set of crutches but does see a metal rod a bit shorter than him hanging on the wall. Likely a broken piece of piping.

It’ll work.

Before he moves from the table, he reaches for the crude knife sitting on the small rack. He reaches up to the back of his neck, feeling for the raised bump of the chip they inserted.

When he feels it, he takes a breath, and brings the knife to his skin.

It burns hot, but Lance grits his teeth and pries the chip out of his neck, letting it fall to the floor. 

He'll deal with cleaning it out later.  

He takes a deep breath, and pushes off the metal table, biting down on his tongue so he doesn’t scream when he lands on the floor, all of his weight on one unsteady leg.

He grips the table, pushing off of it and onto other tables on his way to the wall, before finally grabbing the pipe and propping himself up on it.

Escape pod. Find an escape pod.

He doesn’t know the layout of the ship, but he knows where the pods are usually kept in ships like these. He’s been on one prison ship before and hopes that the basic setup is the same.

He doesn’t let himself linger on his measly chances. He’s in this now. Halfway done.

Lance slowly makes his way to the door, ignoring the screaming of pain throughout his body. The burns on his side ache with every movement, the cuts on his legs rub against the fabric of his pants, and he’s just getting over the infection of his stump.

The healing pain has become something he lives with, a constant in this world. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t hurt, though it’s been less than a year.

It occurs to Lance that he’s turned 18 sometime over the past few months. He’s an adult.

He pushes that away, too. Distractions won’t save him, not outside the cell.

He makes his way down hallway after hallway, his only destination _down_ , having to push into doorways every time he hears voices or steps.

At one point, he swears he hears Eliara’s voice, his stomach crawling up his throat. But it’s just his mind playing with him, as the hall is empty as he moves down it.

He finally reaches the hangar after an eternity of limping forward, and slinks along the wall, scanning for something small.

Moving past the large crafts, he settles on a group of small fighters, sitting to the side.

This, he can do.

He uses the pipe as a crutch to push himself up onto the wing, and messes with the door for a moment before it pops open with a hiss. Keeping the groans-of-pain to a minimum, Lance climbs in, pulling the door shut.

He takes a moment to study the foreign dash, wishing desperately for one of Coran’s horrible how-to videos. Anything that would help him understand how to fly this.

The joysticks and their respective buttons, he understands. The rest is gibberish to him, and he settles for flicking switches and pressing the screen until it lights up and the ship roars to life.

As if sensing the ship’s activation, the hangar door opens, and before he can think too hard about how stupid and definitely deadly this is, Lance pushes the joysticks forward, and the battleship shoots out into the sky.

Letting out the first laugh he’s had in months, one of relief, Lance closes his eyes. For the first time in a year, his chains are behind him, stuck in that hot cell.

He will never go back. He’d rather die.

But his moment of relief is short lived, as something rocks into the ship.

Lance curses, looking back to see the rest of the small fleet pulling out behind him, their lasers hot and aiming right at him.

Lance smiles, in familiar territory.

“Bring it on, dickwads.” He says.

Then he grips the joysticks, and fires.

-

He makes it through a wormhole an hour later, his battleship damaged but still functioning.

It takes him nearly twenty minutes to figure out how to radio out, and another ten to remember how to actually contact Allura and the others, but then he hears Allura’s voice, and everything inside him settles.

He’s safe. He’s alive. He made it.

He made it.

And in a few hours, he’ll see his friends. Shiro, Allura, Coran, Pidge, Hunk. Keith.

 _Keith_.

**NOW**

Though Lance was expecting it to be his mother who fell apart at the sight of him, it is his father. He’s only been home a few hours, but all of that time has been spent explaining the time he was gone-prisoner and before-as well as he can. He tells a carefully constructed story, one that is completely true, but isn’t the whole truth.

When he rolls up his sleeves to show them the scars, his mother stays calm. His older siblings, the ones allowed to stay downstairs late into the night, are in various states of shock.

It is when he rolls up his pant leg to reveal the prosthetic that he hears something like a sob. But it doesn’t come from his mother, or his older brother, or two older sisters.

It’s his father who shatters at the sight.

Lance immediately goes to roll the pant leg back down, but his father reaches out, touching his wrist.

“Let me see. Please.” He says, voice hollow. His eyes shine with tears he’s trying to hold back, and just the sight of them brings tears to Lance’s own eyes.

He hadn’t done much thinking about how they would react. Everything happened so fast, he didn’t get a chance to. It was easier to pretend his family would never find out what a broken man their son has become.

But here they are, and his father is crying, and Lance feels emotion swell in his chest.

His life was not supposed to turn out this way. Things were not supposed to turn out this way.

And though he wants nothing more than the hide all of his broken pieces from his family, the whole reason he came home was to find some semblance of normalcy. He can’t do that if he stands behind a facade of the boy he’ll never be again.

So he unlatches the prosthetic and sets it beside him, pulling his pant leg up.

His father ’s fingers ghost over the whole of the stump, studying the badly healed scar. His father hasn’t practiced medicine in years, having stayed home with to help raise the kids while his mother worked, he still remembers everything and raises his eyes to Lance’s with a frown.

“This was infected.” He says.

Lance’s silence and averted gaze is his answer.

“Dios mio, Lance. How did this happen? Who did this?” He asks.

Lance opens his mouth to reply, but his father shakes his head, answering his own question.

“Lo siento, me olvidé. Need to know only.”

Part of Lance wishes he could tell them. He wishes he could truly tell his mother what happened, and she could hold him like she did when he was a child, singing Spanish melodies into his ears and making him forget about the world outside her arms.

But if his parents knew the extent of what happened to him, of what was done to him, they’d never look at him the same. They’d be just as broken as him, maybe. To know that this whole time, that’s where he was, being burned and cut and broken day after day.

He can’t do that to them. He’ll never do that to them. It is his burden to bear.

So he lets them have the simplified story, the one that is just true enough to help them understand.

He lets his mother sit beside him and hold his hand, and he listens to his father hold in the noise as he cries quietly, and he leans into his older siblings when they come to sit with them.

This is his burden to bear.

-

Lance can’t sleep. This isn’t something shocking, as he hasn’t slept more than a few hours at a time since he stopped going to Keith’s room, since he stopped letting him in.

He wishes so badly Keith were here right now, that he could pretend to be asleep and fold himself into Keith’s arms, the facade of sleep a way for him to do it without any hesitation or question.

He misses Keith. He never thought he’d say something like that, but he also never thought he’d have to take off a prosthetic before bed every night. Things change. Life happens.

And though he knows he shouldn’t, because he’s already gone too far by almost telling Keith how he felt when he was leaving.

He and Keith can’t work. It doesn’t matter that he loves him, it doesn’t even matter that Keith doesn’t feel the same way. It doesn’t matter that Keith lets him sleep with him because he’s a decent person or that he stood up for him or that he held him like he never wanted to let go.

Because Lance is broken, and Keith is whole, and they are not two puzzle pieces that fit together. They can’t be.

Still, against every instinct, he calls Keith tonight. Shiro gave him a tablet that allows him to contact any of them, for when he wants to come back, or just when he wants to talk.

It’s been two days and he hasn’t used it yet. But tonight, he does.

And even though everyone in the castle should be asleep, Keith answers, looking awake. It isn’t surprising, considering Keith sleeps as much as Lance these days. It makes Lance feel less guilty for bugging him.

“Hey,” Lance says.

“Lance? How are you-“

“Please, do not ask me that. Everyone asks me that. Don’t ask me how I’m doing.” Lance says.

Keith’s brows furrow slightly, lips pulled into a thin line. After a moment, he nods.

“What do you want me to say?” He asks. He looks disheveled, a little sweaty, stray hairs falling out of the band he’s tied the rest back with. He was probably training. Lance has the urge to tuck the strands behind his ears.

“Tell me something.” He says.

“Like what?”

“Like, what happened when I was gone. Nobody talks about it.” 

Keith’s cheeks flush slightly, and Lance knows immediately there’s a story there. He wants to know what.

“I’m not really good at talking,” Keith says.

“Don’t care. Do it anyway.” Lance chirps. Keith gives him a long look, one that easily travels the thousands of miles between them, easily seen in the camera.

“Fine.”

Lance almost says it again. _I love you_. It’s on the verge of slipping out so quickly and so easily Keith is around. Everything he does only reassures it for Lance.

Don’t get him wrong, Keith gets on his nerves sometimes. The dude is very good at getting under his skin.

But all that bickering, all the arguing, all the times they were at each other's heads, Lance realizes now that, at least for him, it was a lot because of things going on under the surface, and less that the two actually don’t like each other.

And Keith is a lot more than their arguments. He is kind and soft and serious and, every once in a while, funny.

“We didn’t think you-we didn’t know if you were coming back. We started looking for someone to pilot Blue,” Lance doesn’t miss the fact that Keith and Blue seem to be on first name basis now. It was always ‘the Blue lion’. Now he seems to refer to her as a friend, as much of a friend as a giant metal lion can be.

“We tried for 6 months.”

“Did you guys find anybody?” It’s a dumb question, seeing as Lance would likely have met said person had they actually worked out, but he just wants to keep listening to Keith talk.

Keith’s ears turn pink, and Lance sits up. Something stirs in the pit of his belly.

“One person got close.”

“And?”

“And it didn’t work out.”

“Oh, come on, Keith. Give me the juicy details!”

Keith frowns, eyes glazing over.

“This boy. Aidan. A year younger. He went to the Garrison.”

“Continue.” Lance presses.

“He and Blue connected, I guess. But he said that Blue wasn’t ready to let go of her previous pilot. Of you.”

“What else did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything else.”

“You’re a horrible liar, Kogane.”

“Shut up,” Keith says. “He said that, uh, that Blue wasn’t the only one who wasn’t ready to let go.”

The feeling twists and coils in Lance’s belly, and he knows the answer to his question before he asks it, but he needs to know for sure.

“You and him…”

“No! No. No, we didn’t-“

“It’s none of my business, man, I-“

“We kissed. Once. That was all.”

Lance’s brows arch, and he hopes his eyes don’t give away the disappointment, the hurt.

It isn’t his business, really. And besides, Keith can kiss whoever he wants. He isn’t Lance’s. They’re not together. He thought Lance was dead, too. It shouldn’t matter to Lance.

It does.

“Wow. How was it?”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Come on, man!”

“No.”

“Prude,” Lance says. Keith’s eyes flash with frustration, and he groans, sitting back in his chair. Lance, amused, smiles triumphantly at having been able to irritate him.

“Whatever,” Keith grumbles.

The two chatter on for a few minutes about little things, like if Lance’s mother has made him that dish that Keith knows he loves, and if Pidge finished the thing they were tinkering with, nothing too personal, everything easy.

Then Keith goes quiet, a weird look on his face. It makes Lance’s stomach turn.

“Lance.”

“Keith.”

“You were saying something when the pod door closed. What was it?”

“I said something?” Lance asks innocently. Keith’s brows furrow slightly, and Lance knows that he’s about to talk himself out of having seen it at all.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t remember saying anything.”

Keith looks away, face still scrunched up. Lance hates lying to him, but he’d hate the pity in Keith’s eyes when he found out how Lance feels even more.

“I should get to sleep,” Lance says, though he isn’t at all tired.

“Yeah. Me too.” Keith says, obviously lying.

Neither of them is likely to get any sleep tonight. Both know it. Neither says anything about it.

“Night, Lance,” Keith says.

Lance’s heart aches at the thought of sleeping alone in his bed, so far from where Keith is, but he tells him goodnight anyways.

And when he’s back in bed, he pressed pillows up against his back and pretends that it’s Keith, curled up behind him.


	7. part VII

**NOW**

Lance and Keith talk every night for two weeks. It’s usually when everyone else is asleep, and their worlds are quiet. They talk about little things and big things and how Lance is doing, if he’s getting better.

He is, but he isn’t. The nightmares and the flashbacks still take hold and slam into him, and he’s still healing in all the places he was hurt, and no one knows how long it’ll be until he’s okay again, if he’ll even ever be okay again.

On the castle ship, they start to talk about their options. The Galra threat-the Lotor threat-is still prevalent, and it appears that it will be for a long time. They need Voltron if they want to solidify their alliance, and if they want people to rally behind them.

But Lance is in no position to be a pilot, and that leaves only one option.

Aidan is scheduled to come back in 4 days to try again. Keith let it slip that Blue had formed the bond with him, on accident, and Allura pounced on it. She sent the message to Aidan that night.

Keith has known since last night, but he hasn’t been able to find the courage to call Lance and break the news. He made the others promise not to tell him first; Keith needed to be the one to spill those beans.

He can’t put it off again. Not when his tablet is ringing right now, Lance’s name on the screen.

He answers, and finds himself looking at a somewhat-mussed Lance, dark shadows beneath his eyes.

“Lance? What happened?” He asks, his previous task immediately forgotten. Lance shakes his head, his image wobbling as he props his tablet up.

“Nothing. Just a long day. All good.”

“Lance-“

“What’s up with you? Anything exciting? Do particularly well in training? Better than you already do, I mean, since you’re some kind of prodigy-“ Lance rambles, eager to get off the subject of himself.

Normally, Lance is happy to talk about himself. But when it’s related to his well-being, to his nightmares or his scars or his healing, he pushes it away faster than Keith can blink.

“There’s-uh-there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Lance blanches; his line of thought is clear. That opening line can lead to something far worse than just talking about himself.

“On second thought, I think-“

“Lance.”

Lance stops, letting out a sigh of exasperation.

“Okay. Shoot.”

Keith doesn’t take his time, preferring to just rip the band-aid off.

“Aidan is coming back.” He says.

It takes a moment for it to register, but the moment it does Lance’s face falls. It means a million things, all of them bad for Lance.

It means he’s being replaced on the team, in Blue. With Keith.

“Aidan? Your make out buddy Aidan?” Lance asks, his words stinging as they hit.

“Lance-“

“Was the whole point of me coming to earth just to get rid of me and make room for your boyfriend on the team? Get me out of the way?”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No-“

“Didn’t even wait a whole month before finding my replacement.”

“Lance.”

“How long have you known?” He asks, accusatory and flaming.

Keith purses his lips, trying not to let his hurt filter into his words.

“Not that long.”

“How long?” He asks again.

“Since last night.”

“Before or after we talked?”

Keith doesn’t reply; he knows his silence is answer enough.

“I thought you were on my side,” Lance says, anger dripping from his words.

“I am on your side! I tried to talk them out of it!”

“Not that hard, obviously.” Lance snaps.

“That’s not fair,” Keith replies, voice falling.

 _None of this is fair_ , Keith wants to say. None of this is fair, and even though he’s trying to make it right, the world won’t seem to let that happen. Things are just getting messier and messier and no matter how hard he tries, it’s all slipping through Keith’s fingers. Nothing he does makes it right.

“I think the world has proven that nothing is fair, Keith.” He says. The way he says his name makes Keith sick to his stomach.

“I tried, Lance. I’ve been trying this whole time.” Keith says, his anger rising to match Lance’s.

This isn’t his fault. He’s the one that has backed Lance since the day he returned, and even before, when the group first started searching for a new paladin.

It isn’t his fault that Lance refuses to see that.

Keith often thinks about how he isn’t deserving of someone like Lance. It’s what has kept him from confessing his feelings. Because Lance is good, even still, and Keith isn’t.

But today, Keith wonders for the first time if Lance deserves him. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Keith deserves better.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Lance says, voice hard, edging on sarcastic, totally venomous.

“Fuck you, Lance.” Keith snaps.

Lance’s face contorts, something like pain flitting across his features, but it’s only there for a beat, just long enough to make guilt swell inside Keith.

But the anger remains. Keith is too angry at Lance and at everyone and at everything to let it all go at that flicker of emotion.

“When?” Lance says. Keith knows what he’s asking, and winces.

“Keith?” Lance presses.

“Three days.”

Lance doesn’t reply, his face shifting through anger and sadness before finally settling out into a clean slate that even Keith can’t see through. He’s being pushed outside the wall, and he doesn’t have the tools or the clearance to find his way back in.

“How are you doing?” Keith asks, in the hopes of breaking down some of the bricks before Lance can finish laying them.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Act like you care.”

Normally, Keith would scoff and give Lance shit for being over dramatic.

But his words hit like little needles, and all Keith can do is breathe.

If he were just brave enough to tell him. To tell him how much he cares, how fucking deeply he cares. Maybe things could change, and Lance would understand; maybe he would understand that no one could possibly replace Lance, not to Keith. Not ever.

Lance McClain has taken up permanent residence inside Keith’s heart. He’ll always have a place there, no matter what happens, no matter who Keith ends up with. A piece of him is saved for Lance, like a reserved table setting. It doesn’t matter that he might never come to dinner. It’ll never matter. The restaurant might fill up around it, but the table will remain, and if Lance ever decides to sit down, Keith will join him. No matter what. 

“I-Lance, I-“ He stammers, the words sitting thick on his tongue. If he could just spit them out.

“I should get some rest,” Lance says, shutting him down before he can get the words out.

“Lance-“

“Good night, Keith.”

“I love you.” He says. It comes out a beat before Lance’s face disappears, and Keith doesn’t know if he hears. Part of him hopes he did. Part of him hopes he didn’t.

He sets the tablet down, heart thundering in his chest. It drowns out all other noise, the entire world shrinking to just the beat in Keith’s chest.

Does he know? Did he hear? If he did, will he call back? If he did, will he pretend it didn’t happen? Will he cut contact with Keith altogether?

Has Keith just fucked up one of the best things he has?

 

**THEN**

Lance is only aware of other prisoners one time during his stay. As far as he can tell, the floor he’s on has a bunch of cells, but only his is full. There are likely tons of floors, all sparsely decorated with full cells and full of empty ones.

It’s the 113th day. Lance is sitting against the wall, letting the fresh wounds on his knees get some air, his head tipped back against the metal.

He’s talking, as he often does when he’s conscious. To Keith, as he often does when he talks.

“You better be taking care of Blue for me, Keith. She’s got to be bored out of her mind.”

By this point, Keith has started to talk back to him. His mind creates the image of him in his head, giving Lance a companion. He shows up clearest when Lance is the loneliest, when he’s the saddest. Keith is like a child’s stuffed animal on the hard days.

It is clutching his memory in his hands that keeps Lance from curling up in a ball and crying until he can’t breathe.

“I mean, I think. Can the lions even get bored? I feel like that’s an existential question or something. Whatcha think, Keith?”

“Who in all the heavens is Keith?” A voice, soft and lilting, asks, voice muffled through the metal.

For the first moment, Lance doesn’t realize that it's real. After all, he’s been hearing Keith talk to him for months. Sure, he’s totally a created figure of Lance’s own imagination, but the hearing of voices isn’t all that weird to him.

But this isn’t Lance’s voice. He doesn’t recognize it at all.

“W-what?” Lance asks, not totally expecting the voice to reply. He’s fairly sure it's female, but anatomy isn’t exactly the same with alien races, and the chances that the prisoner is human are slim.

“You’ve been blabbing about this Keith for 4 Vargas. I am just trying to figure out who exactly it is.”

“How long-how long have you been here?”

“In this cell, or in this life?”

“Are you human?” Lance asks. 

“One question at a time.” The voice says.

Lance nods, turning to face the wall, though it isn’t like a window is going to magically appear.

“I was on another ship for a few weeks. Was not giving them the information they wanted. I was brought here last night. I was drugged for transport, and woke up about 5 Vargas ago. I thought I made you up in my head, but when you didn’t quiet yourself, I knew you had to be real.”

Lance feels something twist in his chest. He gets that, for sure. Questioning if you’re losing your mind, not knowing whats real and what isn’t.

“I’m not human. Arielian. My name is Ayda.”

Lance flips through the different species he’s been taught, searching for an appearance.

Arielians. Dark red skin, human like in appearance. He’s never met one, and doesn’t know much about them. But considering this one is locked in a cage beside him, they are his ally.

“You are human, though,” Ayda says.

“Yes.”

“One of the paladins of Voltron?”

“How did you-“

“You do not know where we are, do you?” Ayda asks.

Lance frowns, goosebumps crawling across his skin; they’re most definitely not from cold. Part of him doesn’t want Ayda to keep talking. Their tone is not at all good sounding. No good news can come from their words.

“A prison ship,” Lance says, voice small.

Ayda pauses, no sound coming through the wall.

“I was sent here because I had no further information to give. This is a death ship. Extermination and experimentation.” Ayda says. 

What little was in Lance’s stomach moves up his throat, and he leans over his small toilet-bucket and retches into it.

He knew. Part of him-all of him-knew that. He knew he was here to die.

But it's taking so long. And maybe he figured that this was sustainable, this torture. It isn’t that he’s waiting for someone to save him; Lance knows by now that no one is coming.

It’s that he has learned to pretend. It’s that he’s learned to treat this place as a way station, not a death bed.

It has been a death bed the whole time, he just wanted to believe differently.

“How long have you been here?” Ayda asks.

Lance swallows the bitter taste on his tongue.

“4 months. Ish.”

Again, silence from Ayda.

“What?” Lance asks.

“No one has ever lasted that long.” They say. Lance can’t help the bitter laugh that bursts through his lips.

“Thanks. That’s really reassuring. Makes me feel better about my impending death.”

“I apologize, paladin.”

Lance takes a breath.

“It’s Lance. My name is Lance.”

“It is nice to meet you, Lance. Even if it is under these circumstances.”

Lance tips his head against the wall. It’s been so long since he’s spoken to a real person-er, alien, whatever. One that wasn’t dragging him from a cell or trying to tear him to pieces. It’s quite nice, actually. To use his voice for reasons other than to scream.

“You too, Ayda.”

-

It is an unlikely friendship, the Voltron paladin and the farmer who just happened to witness the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Ayda tells Lance quite a bit about herself over the next few days.

No one comes for her, not yet. But when Lance is taken and brought back bleeding, his lip so split and swollen he can barely speak, Ayda talks. Mostly about farming methods, as she doesn’t know too much about anything else, having been mostly isolated her entire life, but Lance doesn’t mind. He listens.

He likes Ayda. She is kind and distracts him from the pain and the nightmare that doesn’t go away when he wakes up.

But it ends, as everything good does for Lance McClain.

On the 5th day, Lance wakes up to the cell door slamming open. It isn’t Lance’s cell, though.

It’s Ayda’s.

“Where are you taking me?” She asks, sounding brave and firm. He imagines her bravery isn’t a facade; for a farmer with such a soft voice, she has a fierceness.

Lance wishes he could meet her for real, outside of this cell.

It seems that isn’t going to be the case.

“Ayda?” Lance calls, knowing all he can do is be there for her now and when she comes back from interrogation.

“Where are you taking me, I said!” She snarls, voice not wavering a bit.

The soldier doesn’t respond. They all know where she’s going. The chair.

“It’s gonna be fine, Ayda. It’s gonna be fine.” Lance calls, doing what he can to comfort her.

But it’s a lie. Because sometime later, Lance hears the soldier stomping down the hall. And when he peeks out the tiny window, he sees the red figured that must belong to Ayda, strapped to a table, covered in blood, still, headed away from the room with the chair.

No, it wasn’t fine. And Lance is alone again.

 

**NOW**

When Keith’s tablet rings the next morning, Lance’s name popping up on the screen, part of him wants to ignore it. Regardless of the fact that Lance might or might not have heard Keith’s last words, they did fight, bickering like animals, just like they used to. And though he hates to admit it, Lance’s words stung.

But the hesitation only lasts a moment. Because Keith is so relieved that he’s calling, he doesn’t care about anything else.

This means that Lance has calmed down. Or, is getting there, if he wants to talk to Keith.

Keith answers, dropping down on the edge of his mattress.

“Lance. Hey-“

It isn’t Lance that pops up on the screen. It’s a Galra woman that Keith knows only by reputation and from the description of the scar.

Eliara. Her lips pulled up in a sick smile, one that distorts her face, making her look more savage than she should. Her eyes are cold, almost like there’s nothing inside them. There probably isn’t.

“Keith. I have heard your name quite a few times. So nice to put a face to the name.” She says, voice hard as steel.

“Where is Lance?” Keith asks, not moving any other part of his body as he slides his hand along the tablet, sliding the tab to the side so he can set it up to record and broadcast to everyone else in the castle’s tablet.

“He’s safe, don’t worry. I’ve got him.”

Keith’s stomach rolls, nausea coiling inside him. Not again. He can’t lose Lance again.

“What do you want?” He asks, not even trying to toy with her or give her some snarky responses. It’ll get him nowhere, and he knows that. So he skips right to the punch line.

“I have Lance in his hometown. I want all of the paladins, and the last two Alteans. You will be given an address upon arrival.”

“If you-“ Keith starts, taking the bait she throws with her cool tone.

“He will be killed if you don’t all come.” She says.

He knows that the whole point of them going is so that they can all be killed. He knows that. He knows that it’s her plan. This is a shot at wiping out the paladins of Voltron.

But Keith has always had more hope than is good for him. And though he knows Eliara is more powerful than anyone other than maybe Zarkon himself, he believes that they can get Lance out of this. He believes-he has hope-that they can figure this out.

He’s going to find out.

“Fine.” He says, through gritted teeth.

Then Eliara ends the broadcast, and Keith gets to his feet, heading for the control room where the other paladins are likely already gathering.

They’re going to win this time. They’re going to get Lance back this time.

They are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the arielians arent (yet? ya never know) in this version of voltron but they are from the voltron force universe and idk i like them so if you want a picture for more description here's the link for that!!
> 
> http://voltron.wikia.com/wiki/Daigo?file=Daigo_00_03282012.JPG


	8. part VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there isnt a flashback in this chapter, seeing as everything from then that needed telling has been told. that said, an epilogue will be up in the next few days. 
> 
> please comment and give kudos and share!!! i appreciate every single one of you!!

NOW

Keith has never been to Varadero. Keith had never been out of the state he grew up in until he left for the Garrison. Then it was space. A little bit of a jump, there.

But now, he’s in Cuba. The little resort town Lance grew up in is quiet. It’s the middle of February, too early for the regular hustle and bustle of most tourists.

Lucky for them. The Paladins are expecting bloodshed. They’re just hoping it doesn’t end up being too much of their own.

“What address did she give, again?” Hunk asks, looking down at his map, all of which is in a language he can't read. Keith frowns, scanning the buildings around them. He doesn’t know this place. He’s a fish out of water in this town; they all are. They do not have the home field advantage. They don’t have their lions close enough for use, nor do they have anything by the way of weapons save for what they could hide under their clothes.

“The park square,” Keith says. They all look once more upon the grass they’re standing in front of. This is the park square, unless they’ve managed to really screw up their directions, which they doubt, seeing as it was double checked multiple times.

“Okay. Split up, take a lap, see what you see. Report back in two minutes.” Shiro says, on his guard, just as much as Keith. He hasn’t relaxed his shoulders since he found out about Eliara’s contact. Keith cant blame him; he too is a tightly wound ball of string, on the verge of snapping.

“We’re gonna find him,” Hunk says quietly to Pidge, who tries to mask the worry on their face. They nod, nose scrunched, and turn away, heading off with Hunk.

Keith scans every storefront, tree, blade of grass in the entire block, searching for a hint.

He knows this entire thing is a trap. He just hopes that Lance will be here as bait.

He’s just sat down on one of the benches to pull out his map when the small cell-phone-like device in his pocket rings. He goes still, and pulls it out, answering the call that reads Lance.

“Having trouble finding the address?” Eliara asks, her voice clear and confident. Keith wants to punch her in the face. Hard. Really, really hard.

“Stop playing games,” Keith says, voice like steel.

He can practically hear her smile.

“Where is he?” Keith asks.

“I will give you the real address on one condition.”

Keith resists the urge to growl in frustration and grits his teeth.

“And what is it?” He asks.

“You come alone.”

Keith laughs, mostly because he’s stressed and sleep deprived and just generally losing his mind a bit, and not because anything Eliara said was funny.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“This is not a joke. If anyone from your team is detected in a two block radius, Lance will be killed before you reach him. Do you understand?”

Keith swallows and nods, though she cant see it.

“Fine. I understand.”

“Good. You will meet me at Iglesia Santa Elvira.”

Keith’s brows furrow and he gets up, about to ask for directions, when Eliara interrupts him.

“Alone, Keith. That is not a condition you’d do well to ignore.”

Keith closes his eyes, takes a breath, opens them.

“Okay.”

"And Keith?"

"What?"

"Do hurry."

-

Santa Elvira turns out to be a church. There’s something fundamentally screwed up about Eliara choosing a church as their meeting place, and he wonders if she realizes it, and did it on purpose.

She’s quite the sadistic bitch, so it is quite possible.

The church isn’t particularly large or impressive or shiny. It is old, constructed of brick and wood, with a worn look. It’s beautiful, in its self. It wouldn’t be a horrible place to die.

Keith isn’t religious, but he thinks that maybe dying in a place like this might give him some comfort.

Keith pulls his buzzing tablet out of his pocket, looking down at the repeated calls from Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk. He presses his lips together, and turns around, chucking the phone across the road and into the bushes.

Then he turns to face the church, and walks through the door.

-

The church is empty, on the inside. Keith checks every room, double checks them, before finally moving to one of the pews, and dropping into it.

He drops his head to the wood, letting out a breath. Anger swells inside him like a balloon, threatening to split him open from the inside.

He just wants Lance back. He’s so, so, so incredibly sick of these games. Of this incessant missing of Lance, of him constantly slipping through his fingers.

Lance doesn’t deserve this. None of them deserved any of this.

For the first time, part of Keith wishes that he hadn’t been chosen to be a paladin. He would still be by himself in that cabin, all alone, with no Lance and no Eliara and no space. No pain, no loss. Just Keith, alone.

But if he were still there, tucked away, he’d have been forgotten. No one would remember him. The stories about him at the Garrison would die out. His foster families would forget he’d been there at all.

He wouldn’t have loved like this. Loved Shiro and Hunk and Pidge and Allura and Coran like family. He wouldn’t have loved Lance.

So he pushes away the flicker of regret. Because while Keith may lose Lance in the end, at least he got the chance to love him.

And that, that is everything.

Keith closes his eyes. He can do this. Whatever it is, he can do it.

At the sound of a grunt of pain, Keith’s eyes snap open.

Lance.

He jerks to his feet, reaching for the blade he has tucked away, running for the back door and shoving through it.

He finds himself in a yard, underneath a blistering sun, surrounded by beautiful flowers and bushes and green grass.

And in the middle of it, on the ground, is Lance. He has a blooming bruise around his left eye, but other than that is unhurt. He sits up when he sees Keith, and makes to move forward.

Then Eliara, standing behind him, lunges, catching his arm in her vice grip. Lance stops, lips parting.

Keith wishes he spoke the language of Lance fluently. Because he can see it in Lance’s eyes; something he wants to say, something he can’t say.

“You need to go, Keith. Get out of here.” Lance says, face contorted.

Eliara smiles, letting go of Lance, stepping over him, moving away.

The minute she’s taken a few steps toward the few soldiers she has perched to the side, Lance relaxes on the ground. He’s slow and sluggish; likely drugged.

“Would you like to know a secret, Keith?” Eliara asks, stopping and turning to face him. Her gaze flicks to the blade in his hand, and she smiles.

Keith doesn’t answer.

“Would you?”

Keith doesn’t want to play her game. But he needs time to make a plan, time to figure out what to do.

Because right now, they’re outnumbered, and Lance is in no position to hold his own.

“Yes,” Keith says, teeth clenched.

Lance meets Keith’s eyes, and Keith shifts his weight. He’s so close, and if he had the others to back him, he could get Lance in moments.

But he’s alone.

I’m okay, Lance mouths, nodding his head. Trying to dispel the worry.

It doesn’t work, but Keith appreciates the attempt.

“I don’t particularly want to kill all of you. Actually, I’m hoping to avoid it.”

Eliara walks around the yard slowly, Keith always turning to face her head on. He knows better than to be the mouse the cat sneaks up on.

While also watching Eliara, Keith keeps eye on Lance at all times, fearing that he’ll disappear again.

“Because if I kill all of you, then another Voltron is born. New paladins. We reset the clock. Whereas simply breaking you from the inside. Fracturing you just enough.”

Keith feels like he’s in a movie. The villain lays out their evil plans, all the while waiting for help to come

The key difference, though, is one thing.

Help is not coming. The others have no idea where Keith is.

He’s in this by himself. And he will get Lance out of here.

Something rolls in his stomach, and all of his senses buzz to life. It skates along his skin, awareness, electricity. Adrenaline, he thinks.

“Then what’s the point of this? Dragging us here?”

“I only needed you. The others don’t need to be here to feel the reverberations. It is you, Keith, that I aim to break the most.”

Keith swallows the anger, the one that makes him stupid, the one that makes him impulsive.

He won't rise to her bait. She wants him to lose it, she wants him to put her plan into action.

“Only you need be present to watch me kill him.”

Everything slows down after that. Eliara pulls out a knife, and before Keith can even breathe, even blink, she brings it down into Lance’s stomach.

Keith’s knees buckle, that same anger unfurling. But as much as he wants to rip Eliara’s limbs from her body, Lance’s shirt is turning redder by the second, and all he does is rush over to him.

He drops to the ground beside him, fingers skimming over the dampening shirt.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to fix this. There isn’t enough time, there’s never enough time, and Lance is dying, right here, right now.

“You made it,” Lance says, looking up at Keith from his spot in the grass.

Everything inside of Keith folds in on itself, tears welling in his eyes. He forces them back, and lets out a shaking breath.

“Course I did. Someone has to save your ass.” He says. Lance gives him a small smile, reaching up to grab onto Keith’s shirt, tugging him down to him.

“Keith. I gotta tell ya something.”

“Don’t do that. You're gonna be fine."

"I'm dying."

"You're not."

He is. He is, he is, he is. He’s dying. They both know it.

Lance lets go of Keith’s shirt, letting his fingers fall to the grass.

“I heard. What you said, I heard it.”

“Lance-“

“I love you. I love you, too.” Lance says.

And if these were normal circumstances, and Lance wasn’t bleeding out, Keith would be happy. He’d be so happy he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

But right now, he can't stand it. He can't stand the last minute confession. It shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn't happen this way.

“Lance, you’re gonna be fine-“

“I’m not, Keith.”

“Shut up, Lance-“

Lance grabs onto Keith again, this time pulling him by the hair, not even letting go when their faces are centimeters apart.

“I was scared, and I thought I was too broken, but I need you to know that I love you, too, and-“

Keith presses his lips to Lance’s. Lance’s lips are too warm beneath Keith’s, but his fingers grip Keith’s hair tighter, and he kisses him fiercely. It is messy and slick and nothing like their first kiss should be, but they don’t have any more time. There will be no more chances to get it right, so Keith is taking what he can get.

He breaks from Lance’s mouth, the realization that this is the end hitting him again. He closes his eyes, ducking his head.

And though Lance is the one dying, it’s him who tucks Keith’s head into his chest, stretching to press a kiss to Keith’s hair, comforting him.

Because there is no life without Lance. Not anymore, not now.

He loves him, and he’ll always love him, and he doesn’t think he could stand living with a Lance sized hole in this chest forever. 

Keith doesn’t think he’s strong enough for that. And he never wants to find out.

“Are humans always this incredibly pathetic?” Eliara asks. Keith suddenly remembers that she’s there, and sits up.

He’s going to kill her. If she’s going to take Lance from him, Keith will take everything from her.

So Keith bends down once more, presses a kiss to Lance’s hot forehead, and gives him a small nod. Lance understands, and mirrors the gesture.

Then he relaxes against the grass, eyes pinned on Keith as he gets to his feet and faces Eliara.

But before he can do anything two of the soldiers are grabbing onto Keith’s shoulders, dragging him back.

He thrashes, kicks, bucks, does everything he can to get free, but the two Galra soldiers have everything on him. Strength, height.

Eliara walks back to Lance, taking the same blade again, and something inside of Keith snaps. He’s pushing out of the soldiers grips and falling to the grass beside Keith, and something like fire is taking hold of him and he lets it out. He wants to burn the world down. The sky shakes, splits, breaks apart.

He thinks he screams, or maybe it’s Lance, or maybe it’s Eliara. The sound is the last thing he hears before he hits the ground.


	9. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who supported this fic. i really loved writing it, and really appreciate everybody who read and left comments and kudos. yall are awesome. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it! please share/comment/all that other stuff. thanks!

Keith wakes up warm. The sensation doesn’t match his thoughts, which are panicked, frantic, almost like he’s just been plucked out of a nightmare. For a moment, the memory doesn’t come to him; when it does, it hits hard and fast. He knows what his being unconscious means. It means that Lance is gone, and Keith wasn’t there when it happens.

It means that Lance is gone, and Keith wasn’t there when it happened.

All he remembers is being held back as Eliara plunged another knife into Lance’s chest. He doesn’t know why it goes dark after that, or what happened.

He sits up, nausea rolling through him the minute he’s no longer horizontal. He groans, pressing the heel of hands to his pulsing temple.

The feeling subsides after a few long seconds, and Keith drops his hands, finally taking in the room.

He’s inside the castle. Somehow. He doesn’t remember coming here. He doesn’t know how the group found him.

All he knows is that Lance must be dead.

It hits him like a truck, the breath sucked from his lungs in an instant. Tightness blooms in his chest, and he ducks his head, something like a sob clawing its way up his throat.

Lance is gone and Keith is here and once again, they’re much too far apart. But this isn’t a distance Keith can close; it’ll never give or shorten. It will be this, always.

If he just could have saved him. Somehow, someway. If he had fought harder. Certainly, there was something he could have done. Certainly-

The bathroom door opens, a blast of steam blowing out.

It’s in that moment that Keith realizes he isn’t in his room. He was too out of it to notice that this room is much more decorated, little homey items placed everywhere. It smells different, too. Like clean towels and sand.

He’s in Lance’s room.

And standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing only a pair of sweats, toweling off his hair, is a ghost. A dead boy. 

Lance.

He tosses the towel back into the bathroom, moving a few steps back into the room before noticing that Keith is awake. He goes still, lips parting at the sight of a definitely-disheveled Keith.

“You’re awake.” Lance breathes.

“You’re alive.” Keith mirrors.

Keith pushes off the bed, unsteady on his feet. He wobbles, and Lance is there in a moment, grabbing onto his shoulders. He pushes him lightly back down, and Keith drops onto the mattress. Lance sits beside him, looking at Keith like he’s the one who is somehow not dead, when Lance is the one who took two blades to the torso.

“What happened? I don’t-“

“You leveled the block,” Lance says. Keith’s brows furrow, and he shifts back. He’s dreaming. He’s definitely dreaming.

But when he reaches down and pinches his leg, he feels pain, and knows that somehow, this is the world, this is real. He’s real. Lance is real.

“Why am I in your room?” He asks. Lance’s cheeks flush, and he purses his lips.

“I wanted to keep an eye on you. You’ve been passed out for like 3 days. Couldn’t leave you in the healing pod.”

Yet another bit of information that Keith definitely wants more detail on. But not now. Not when there’s something bigger.

“How are you alive?” Keith asks.

Lance purses his lips.

“I’ll let the others know you’re awake. Shiro can explain.”

Then Lance is on his feet. But Keith doesn’t want answers from Shiro. He wants them from Lance.

He snakes a hand out, fingers brushing Lance’s wrist. He stops, turning back to look at Keith.

“No,” Keith says.

And maybe because Lance is relieved, and wanted this too, he nods, and sits back down beside Keith.

"What happened?" Keith asks. 

“I was laying there in the grass, and Eliara stabbed me, and I just looked over at you, and man, it was like something out a movie. You got free and dropped to the ground and you had this look on your face. It was…” Lance stops, eyes glazing over. He looks over at Keith, and the look in his eyes makes Keith’s stomach roll.

“I still don’t really know what you did. I just-I closed my eyes and things started to shake like there was an earthquake, and it only lasted a second, and it was over. There was this light. When I opened my eyes it was just me and you. Eliara, the soldiers, the church-they were gone. Broken to pieces.”

Keith drops his head, guilt taking root in his gut.

“Did I-did I hurt anyone else?” He asks, blood cold. Lance’s fingers ghost over his leg, drawing his attention back.

“It was just the church. Nobody was inside. And it was reconstructed by some weird machines Pidge had hidden away. So, everything’s okay.”

Keith scoffs, pushing Lance’s hand off his skin.

“It isn’t.”

“You saved my life, Keith,” Lance says.

“I could have killed you.”

“You couldn’t hurt me if you wanted to.”

Keith meets his gaze, eyes burning.

“How are you alive?” He asks, once again. It's the only question that really matters.

“The others tracked the cell you had. They were outside when you-when it happened. Got a little scraped up but they’re all okay. They got us both to a healing pod. I was inside for two days. You were in it for an hour, but when it opened up, you were still asleep.”

“I thought you were dead. When I woke up.” Keith says.

Lance’s jaw tightens, and he holds Keith’s gaze.

“I’m not dead.”

“And you’re okay?” Keith already knows the answers, knows that the healing pod did all the work, but he needs to hear it from Lance. Because the question isn’t all about how he’s doing physically.

Keith wants to ask him if Lance hates him now. If he’s afraid of him.

Lance avoids the question, sensing the double meaning himself.

“Allura thinks its the combo of your human and Galra genes or something. Some dormant power that you, like, woke up. The adrenaline in the situation triggered the activation.” He says.

Keith closes his eyes.

He has spent his life as an outsider. In foster homes, in school, at the Garrison, even here. But now, now it's even worse. Because before, his Galra genes were just there. They didn’t change anything.

Keith is different. He doesn’t fit with the Galra, he doesn’t fit with humans.

He shouldn’t be surprised. This is how it's always been. This is all there is.

A hand on his thigh pulls him to the present, but he doesn’t open his eyes until Lance says his name, softly, gently, in a way Keith has never heard before. Only then does he meet Lance’s gaze.

“You’re some kick-ass alien hybrid who can bring down a building. You look like someone just kicked your puppy.” Lance observes.

Keith shakes his head, scooting away from Lance; he doesn’t miss the flash of something like disappointment on Lance’s face.

He remembers what Lance said, when he was dying in Keith’s arms. But he realizes now it was likely a lie, a way to make Keith feel better before they both died.

“I should get back to my room,” Keith says. Lance’s brows knit together, and he frowns.

“No. No way, dude. You don’t get to do that.” He says.

“Don’t get to do what? Sleep in my own bed?” Keith asks.

“Shut me out.” Lance snaps in reply.

That stops Keith cold. Shut Lance out? He has to. Because the minute he lets him _in_ , he’ll just want out.

“Lance-“

“I wasn’t lying about what I said. In the churchyard." Lance says.

"You saved my life. You killed Eliara and her soldiers.” He continues. 

Keith doesn’t reply.

“You’re the only person who didn’t try to fix me,” Lance says, voice going quiet.

“Please, Keith.”And maybe it’s that he begs, or that his voice breaks, but Keith finally looks at him.

“I talked to you all the time. Pretended you were there with me. That’s how I realized that I-“ Lance stops, lifting his head.

“Thank you. For killing her.”

 _I’d burn down the world for you_ , Keith wants to say. What comes out is, “You shouldn’t thank me.”

Keith sits back, an image of Eliara, splitting at the seams, playing on replay in his head. The fact that he was able to cause such destruction without realizing, without trying.

He’s dangerous. He doesn’t belong here.

“I’m not good for you. I’m not good for anyone.”

“Keith-“

“I’m not.”

Lance is quiet for a moment.

“The amputee with severe PTSD and the human-galra hybrid with a hot temper? Sounds alright to me.”

Keith says nothing.

“Look, man. The only person who gets the decide who’s good enough for me is me. And I’m pretty happy with my choice.” Lance says.

“Okay?” Lance asks. Keith tosses the word over in his mouth. He wants it, he wants it so badly.

He wants to be good enough for Lance. He wants to try.

So, he says, “Okay.”

Keith looks his way, not at his face, but at his scars, at the patchwork quilt of Lance’s skin.

Lance goes to reach for the shirt sitting on the bedside table when he notices the attention, only to be stopped by Keith’s hand.

“Can I see?” He asks. Lance’s brows furrow, but he nods. After a moment of hesitation, he shifts, turning so that his back is facing Keith.

Keith’s stomach rolls at what he sees. Whereas he’s seen the front and the arms, he hasn’t seen Lance’s back.

And now he understands why Lance hid it.

It is a map of lands Lance has traveled; a landscape dotted with memories of different pains. The south, burns that disappear beneath his waistband. The east, long lashes, an angry pink. The west, little lines, almost like tally marks. The north, rings of fire. Like the burn of a cigarette.

And along his spine. A name. Spelled out precisely, with careful lettering.

 _Eliara_.

“Lance.” The word falls from Keith’s tongue. Lance ducks his head. He moves to shift away, but Keith touches his shoulder, nudging him to turn.

He doesn’t want to. But he does.

He lets Keith trace the path of a year of incarceration, the map of what Eliara did. It makes Keith feel sick, his stomach coiled into painful knots. But not because it’s ugly, because it’s messy, but because he knows Lance dealt with it alone.

"Brutal, huh?" Lance asks.

"No." Keith says.

Lance's brows knit together for a beat, then he's leaning forward, and Keith tips his forehead against his, and lets out a breath. And god, everything inside of him goes still. The weight sitting on his lungs slinks away, the slight throbbing of a headache is pushed back, the guilt and anger and fear all disappear.

The entire world is Lance and Keith, bent together.

Ever so slowly, Lance tips his chin up, brushing his lips against Keith’s. Keith responds in kind, shifting closer, kissing him back.

It’s the first kiss they should have had; the first kiss they deserved. Quiet and slow and searching. It is the first step in learning their way around each other. It is Keith’s hands sliding along Lance’s hips and waist, settling in the small of his back. His fingers ghost over his scars, and Lance stiffens, pulling away.

In response, Keith brings his hand up to Lance’s cheek, thumb grazing the scar cutting across his skin. It’s softer than Keith realized he could be.

And for the first time, Keith thinks that maybe love is less like gunpowder and more like home.

Because Keith Kogane has never felt more at home than he does right now, wrapping his arms around Lance, the two falling back onto the bed, tucked so tightly together they're nearly one person beneath the blanket.

Because this is it. This is all there is. And it’s enough.


End file.
